Amor Fati
by littorella
Summary: Jane learns the secret that Loki survived Svartalfheim and makes a bet with him in exchange for her life. As wagers generally go, the ones with liars are the most interesting of all. Lokane.
1. Bet

A/N: A spin on the old Tokyo Babylon bet. We'll see who the bigger cheater turns out to be.

* * *

_._

_Last time it was two years._

Jane could hear Darci's voice ringing in her head as she chopped vegetables for dinner. Her knife sliced through an onion and she could feel her eyes start to sting from the fumes. Why didn't people just genetically engineer onions that didn't make you cry? She sighed indignantly while trying to chop the offensive vegetable as quickly as possible.

Two years, the thought rattled around again. Like two years of illness. She had constantly thought of Thor, wondered about where he was, who he was with, why he wasn't with her. Sometimes she saw him on the news, and the image made her stomach turn until she shut it off. But that was nothing compared to the sickness that affected her now. It'd only been three days since he'd left again, but a sort of dissonance had infected her, as if he'd taken some part of her with him.

The carrots came next, tiny round pieces, slowly growing in size as her knife reached the green tops. She scooped up all the tiny pieces and dropped them into a sizzling pan. The pieces burned a bit as she stirred them. The pan was too hot. Jane glanced at the clock. Erik would be there in less than ten minutes.

The food would probably be terrible, but it mattered little to her. She hadn't really tasted food at all for these three days. In fact, she'd begun to have an intense psychosomatic reaction to Thor's absence and the possibility of two more years, or infinity, before she saw him again. She could not process what had happened; her body felt as though it were made of sand and someone was stirring it constantly.

Two years. 730.5 days. So many days.

But life had to go on and so she invited Erik to dinner, insisting on it despite feeling herself physically burning down and turning into ash. Food held no meaning to her, but she felt it was the right thing to do. Her dissonance seem to her like what it must be like to have information directly loaded into the brain, bypassing senses completely. You know the facts, but you can't feel the reality of them. It was in this way that Jane knew food to be satisfying, but it was only intellectual understanding.

She stirred the contents of the pan, adding salt. To taste, they say, and she tasted a piece of onion. She knew it was salty, but could not actually taste it at all. The sensation skipped her tongue and went straight to the mind. That small piece of onion was painful to swallow; it was flavorless fibrous matter despite the fact her brain processed it to be much better than that.

Jane stopped and leaned against the counter, reeling from the detachment. She wanted to see him, to touch him, to fill the void he'd left behind. It sounded stupid, but she felt like it was the only thing that could fix her.

Suddenly, the absent-minded cook remembered that she'd forgotten the zucchini. It had to go in before everything else turned to mush. Frantically grabbing the squash, she tried to move her knife impossibly fast the way those chefs on television did. Not two cuts in, the knife cut her finger and blood welled out of the small injury. The knife clattered to the counter, and Jane gasped in surprise. Desperately trying to stem the blood that was dripping all over the place, she stumbled over to the sink.

"Ouch…" she winced at the pain. Now that she'd taken a good look at the cut, it began to sting earnestly. The blood splashed into the sink, pooling with the watery bottom in a wispy haze. Thinking quickly, she hopped a step back and turned off the stove. She stopped to inspect the wound. It was a deep bleeder and stitches looked to be on the horizon.

"Sorry, Erik, dinner might be ruined," she muttered, wrapping her finger up in a paper towel to stop the bleeding. When the tough paper wasn't doing much, she dug through a drawer for gauze and rolled the finger until the bandage made it twice the size. Thankfully, the flow slowed with this treatment. Jane rolled her eyes, of course this had to happen.

Trying to clean up before Erik arrived, she took the bloody pieces of zucchini and threw them into the sink. One of the pieces fell into the garbage disposal as intended, the other fell onto the watery, blood-spotted bottom.

Except it didn't fall on the sink bottom, it fell through it.

Jane blinked, thinking she'd imagined the event. She fished for the uncut zucchini and dropped it into the sink. The whole vegetable disappeared into the sink bottom. Eyes widening at the sight, she excitedly ran over to the table, looking for her phone. Her heart pounded fiercely and her hands trembled, making dialing difficult.

"Come on, Erik…" she gritted her teeth while waiting for him to pick up. The impatient scientist in her took over and she tapped her food, wishing that he picked up.

Nothing.

She swore. Why can't people over 45 understand that cellphones are for the expressed purpose of being reached at all times and places? Time for a voicemail. "Erik, this is amazing. I don't know how it happened, but there is a portal in my kitchen sink. Please call me back immediately and hurry over!" she shouted into the phone.

Frantically, she rushed over to the sink again. How could this have happened? The realm alignment had ended already, there shouldn't be any more portals existing on earth. Something shimmered in the bloody water-an image.

Squinting to see the image, Jane lowered her face to be closer. Something wavered across the water, something bright, like sky. Moving her head to lean down, she saw columns through the water, framing a view of the ocean….she placed a hand over her mouth.

It was Asgard on the other side.

Tentatively, she extended a hand down in the sink. Her heart skipped a beat when her fingers disappeared through the sink bottom. She could go. Asgard. Thor. Everything.

Without another thought, Jane climbed onto the counter and prepared to step into the sink. It must look so crazy, she thought, jumping into a sink. But it was now or never. Erik was smart enough to figure what she'd done. Left foot, right foot. Jane closed her eyes and stepped forward into the sink, half expecting to go nowhere.

A force suddenly pulled her down through the portal and she found herself drifting through the spectacular stream of the Einstein-Rosen bridge. Before she knew it, her worn sneakers hit a stone floor, and she fell forwards from the force of entry.

Asgardian sun blinded her unprepared eyes, a disorienting welcome. Jane placed a shaky hand on the intricate railing and looked out over the sprawling architecture. The view was just as breath-taking as when she'd first experienced its grace, but there was only one thing on her mind now: Thor. Where could one find Thor?

Her mind raced, struggling to take it all in. It was midday after a tumultuous almost-end of the world. What would a prince be doing in a time like this? Leading the people, obviously. But where does one lead the people? Were there such things as offices in Asgard? She shook her head in frustration, no, even if they had offices, she wouldn't know where to look.

Then it struck her: the throne. Leaders led from their thrones, and she definitely knew how to find that.

Taking care to stay inconspicuous, she rushed through the sandstone halls. Her stomach knotted up in anticipation like never before. Images of how he would greet her played over and over in her mind. A kiss, an embrace, joyfulness, or annoyance? Her heart was beating out of control, and nothing at all had even happen. She could taste the salt of the air, feel the grit of the stone beneath her feet. Everything was suddenly so real. Funny that anticipation was the medicine to her dissonance.

After a few wrong turns and some strange looks from those walking by, Jane finally found the throne room. She hesitated at the door, momentarily paralyzed by her anticipation. Suddenly spinning around and putting her back to the door, she forced herself to take a deep breath. Her brow was deeply furrowed in anxiety. What if he didn't want to see her?

Wouldn't it be terrible for her to interrupt some important business of his?

Her logic said that there must be a better way, but her instinct was to just go. Taking her good hand, Jane slowly cracked the wide chamber door open. The weight of the door made it difficult to open quietly and she found herself only about to crack it without exerting great effort and a great deal of noise. Moving her eyes to the crack, she glanced into the massive throne room.

To her disappointment, there was no one there.

The temperature seemed to drop when she realized the emptiness of the vast hall. However, in the corner of the room, something moved. Jane's eyes snapped to the place and she caught a dark figure holding a large stack of papers, slowly reading them. It was a man with long hair and dark armor. Maybe this was one of his friends and could show her the way to him! Without much thought, she pushed the door further and entered the room. The hinges creaked a loud groan and announced her as she slipped through.

The man in the corner swung around sharply at the sound. Jane caught his pale face for a second before an illusion transformed him into someone else of a different stature. The man strode out of the shadow and regarded her with narrowed eyes. As light shown on him, she recognized him as Thor's father, the king. She knew this was not Odin, but it couldn't be…. Yet she was sure of what she'd just seen.

"Jane Foster," he announced with a booming voice, "How are you in this realm?"

"I saw you," she replied defiantly.

The king was suddenly directly in front of her, causing her to flinch in surprise. Sometimes she really hated these people's abilities. The man's lips curled into a sneer, uncharacteristic of his jovial face. This confirmed that she'd not been delusional. "And what exactly did you see?" he challenged.

Jane retreated a step back and glanced left and right uncomfortably. There was only the imposing emptiness around. Better face the trial than try to run.

"I saw you, Loki."

The old man leaned back and let out a chuckle. He tapped his staff on the ground and the illusion lifted, revealing a smirking Loki. She just knew it. Loki was too conniving to just let himself die. He raised his arm and flexed his hand, chilly eyes never leaving Jane's. She heard all the entrances lock with resounding metallic thuds. Fear was unavoidable at this point. She closed her eyes for a minute and thought to herself, "Life, it was nice to know you. Erik, Darci, it's been great. Thor, I am sorry that I'm so close but so far."

Loki circled her with an amused expression. "You know, Jane," he began, sounding casual and conversational,"You're quite extraordinary. I don't know how you got here, being so utterly mortal and all, but I must confess that you're far more clever than the people in this realm. You're the first to know it's me."

Jane stood her ground and replied fiercely, "Maybe because you are exploiting the grief they are feeling from your supposed death."

"Jane, Jane, you are so capable of flattery," he said in a condescending tone, "I know better than to think the people here grieve for me. They're all out there busy rebuilding our city. Not even my own brother can take the time to mourn me properly."

Run, her mind said, and she spun for the door, hoping there was a way to manually undo the lock. To her dismay, her feet froze in mid-stride and she found herself unable to move a muscle. Loki made his way around her slowly, his hand reaching around her neck. His fingers were as cold as ice on her skin. His expression was much more serious now.

"And what do you think you're doing?" he hissed, releasing her from paralysis but tightening his grip of her neck.

Jane gasped for breath and whispered with ragged words, "I'm going to tell Thor about you."

"I could kill you right now. You're like a mouse, so weak and helpless," Loki responded coldly. She tried to fight his hand by digging at them with her uninjured hand. His grip was iron and immovable.

"Then he'll know it was you," she managed to croak out in between difficult breaths.

"Yes, he'll think that I, a dead man, killed you." The corners of his mouth curled into a cruel smile. "Do you honestly think I could cheat death but I can't kill a mere mortal?"

"He'll know." Jane insisted, desperately trying to escape in any way. She tried to kick, but her legs felt heavy and useless.

Loki released her and she crumpled to the floor, sucking in air greedily and fighting to get to her feet. He bent down and put a hand on her shoulder gently. Jane froze, expecting another blow. Instead, he pushed the hair out of her face and stared her in the eye. "You know, this is too easy," he remarked, "My mother always chastised me about playing with my food before I ate it, but honestly, is there a better way to tolerate something so boring? Let's do something amusing instead-let's make a bet, Jane Foster. If I win, I kill you. If you win, I let you live."

"What?"

"You heard me. Let's make a wager of your life."

Jane crawled to her feet and tried to inch away from him. "I'd rather die than make bets with liars," she spat out indignantly.

This turn of defiance made Loki laugh. There was just something so terribly amusing about how the powerless use death as an honorable path. "Let's make it more appealing, shall we? You set the terms for your win."

A pause between them settled into silence as Jane considered her terms. But honestly, what was she thinking? Negotiating with Loki, the least trustworthy creature in existence? He would never keep his word.

"If I win, you never strike against earth, me, or Thor, again." It was lofty, but she threw it out there to try her luck.

For a moment, she thought him offended, but to her surprise, he accepted. "Agreed, then what is the task?"

Ball's in your court, they say. And sometimes that's worse than having to just deal with a bad hand. The gravity of it puzzled Jane. What was a bet interesting enough for Loki to take and easy enough for her to win? They couldn't bet on strength, intellect, or any other ability. Loki would no doubt cheat her. She racked her mind for a weakness, but couldn't think of one. Putting herself in his shoes, she imagined what it would be like to be Loki. A man overshadowed by a more outgoing and well loved brother. His pride? No, there was no reason for him to keep his word if he lost on pride.

Then it hit her. So simple. The task was for her to succeed in convincing him to let her go. If she lost, then it was her fault. If she won, by virtue of winning he'd have no tricks. And it would also buy her enough time to wait for Thor to aid her.

"You will come spend two years on earth, with us _mortals_," she said slowly, confident in her plan to outwit him. "And at the end of two years, if you feel something-affection for us, for humanity-if you see us as something other than objects, then I win."

"And if I feel nothing?"

"Then you win."

Loki laughed at the suggestion as if it were the most absurd idea he'd ever heard. "Marvelous, Jane, you are entertaining. Two year is a blink to us, a momentary distraction. You think you can show me what is so great about Midgard in two years? I think you have lost this one before we've even begun. Let's do pile on the interesting. I insist that you not speak to or see my brother in this time."

His words were like a knife twisting in her chest. Two years, again. The thought was pure agony and it must have shown on her face by the the looks of how Loki seemed to enjoy himself. But she didn't have to keep her word, she certainly didn't expect her opponent to do the same.

"Ok. I won't talk to Thor. So you accept the bet then," Jane pressed.

"Yes, I accept." He extended his left hand for a handshake, a clear mark of someone who'd never shaken hands. Awkwardly, Jane held out her injured left hand. Loki regarded her bandage with curiosity. "Whatever is this?"

"It's just a cut, it was an accident," she muttered quickly and shook to bind the wager.

The dark-haired man grabbed her wrist and refused to let go. "There is something strange about this wound," he remarked and began to unravel the gauze.

"Hey! Stop that!" Jane exclaimed, pulling her hand back. The gauze just ended up completely unraveling as she did this, pulling painfully at the cut itself. She hissed at the sting of the cotton ripping from her finger and instinctively held her left to her chest. Loki regarded her with a strange interest, his eyes glistening as he looked for something.

"Your blood." He narrowed his eyes. "There is a trace amount of Aether in your blood."

The color drained from Jane's face as she looked down at her hand. Her cut had begun to bleed a little without the gauze holding it closed. Of course, it was the Aether all along. It dawned on her that the blood in the sink had made the portal. The possibility of it was exhilarating and terrifying at once. She could travel between Asgard and earth, that was spectacular, but there was the overshadowing fact that the residual Aether might be enough to slowly kill her.

Jane gave a sad frown and let her hand fall to her side.

A drop of blood fell to the ground and splattered into a small burst. God she wished she could be home right now.

Suddenly, the floor seemed to flex and wave like quicksand. In a flash, it pulled her through and she could no longer see the room. She heard an echo of her name as Loki called for her in confusion. Then there she was, falling to the floor of her apartment, the same way she'd fallen to Asgard. A loud thud came from right behind her and she turned to see Loki also fallen on the floor, his black hair wild and undignified. If it were not for the fear she felt, she would have laughed.

"Um, welcome to your two years on earth, I guess."

He shot her a murderous glare.


	2. Shelter

**Shelter**

* * *

.

"What are you doing." It was a statement more than a question.

Jane sat on her giant suitcase, trying to zip up the over-packed luggage. The top refused to budge. Shifting herself to kneel instead, she tried to press harder on the corner. No luck this way either. She knew there was a limit of the force she could apply on the top to push it down, but there was just something irrational about the process that made her keep trying. Frazzled and irritated, she bounced on the luggage. How did she have so much stuff? She'd come to London with just this one suitcase, and now it can't even close with only two weeks worth of things.

"I'm packing," she replied, huffing in between efforts to push the suitcase shut. "You could help, you know."

Loki stood in her doorway, leaning against the frame with arms crossed. He was in one of Erik's old shirts, a worn blue button-down that hung from his raw-boned shoulders. Its ill-fit made him look incredibly young, like a boy masquerading in his father's clothes. Regarding her with curiosity, he seemed fascinated by her struggle. His gaze followed her closely as she tried various methods.

"Do you not have servants for these menial tasks?"

The young woman gave him an incredulous look. Servants? "Why would I let someone else touch my stuff?"

He raised an eyebrow at her answer. "Your possessions seem excessive," he suggested as he glanced over at her luggage, sounding both condescending and non-committal at once.

"But I _need_ all of it!" Jane exclaimed, frustrated with the process and pulling at the zipper hopelessly.

"Yes, you need all of this for two weeks," he taunted her.

"Fine!" she yelled and threw the top open. She took out a pair of boots and stacked them on the bed-maybe it wouldn't rain, one could hope. With the loss of such a bulky item, the suitcase zipped up easily. She glared at Loki, angry at herself for not being able to prove him wrong. Rolling it across the room, she placed it on her bathroom scale. The little dial moved with the weight and Jane let out an exasperated cry, "Overweight! You're kidding me!"

"What is the meaning?"

Jane sent him a pitiful look and collapsed on the floor. "There's a weight limit for what you can take onto an airplane, and this thing is over the limit. Ugh, this is the worst! I'll have to take out my books or something."

"Why are we using this terrible form of transportation?" Loki asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't think there are really any other ways." Jane had never really thought about it much, but there really was not any other way to get back to the states other than on a plane. What could they do, a boat? God that would take forever. Stuck in a small metal box with a lot of other people on the ocean. How did people used to live without airplanes anyway?

A voice broke her from her thoughts. "Why not fly?"

"What do you mean? We are flying. I bought us both tickets to fly," she explained as if it were plain as day. "I've paid for them and we're going to —"

"No," Loki interrupted her, "I can fly us."

Jane looked at him incredulously. "You? I'm not going to let you pull me through the sky by the arm for a few thousand miles. That is ridiculous." She gestured at her arm frantically as if something were pulling it. "I mean, you'd probably break it. And we couldn't be able to take my luggage so I'd be there with nothing. The logistics just don't make sense, so no thank you, we will be taking an airplane."

Unexpectedly, Loki did not answer. He seemed to take in her words for a minute, distilling truth from the nuance of her rambles. There was something about the way she moved, the way she always seemed around him. At times, he spied her at ease when she forgot she was not alone: reading a book, sipping on her coffee. But as soon as she laid eyes on him, her entire body tensed.

"You think I would intentionally harm you," he stated bluntly.

"That's not what I said." She tried her hardest to not sound afraid.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them.

Jane began to readjust her luggage for the weight limit and refused to speak again. She pulled out her some things she thought were heavy. Shoes, books, a coat, anything that she thought was really—well—excessive. Her mind wandered to what he's just said again. She was not afraid of him. She was not afraid of him. But the little voice in the back of her head whispered its messages constantly. She had far more to lose than he did. In fact, he didn't really have anything to lose at all. He could feel bored of their little bet and kill her at any minute.

Loki had too much power over her.

She felt slightly better just understanding the source of her fear, but she needed to come up with some sort of plan to guarantee her safety. A task for the long plane ride, she decided.

"Why do we have to go?" Loki finally broke the silence.

Jane let out a small breath and promptly replied patiently, "I only get two weeks a year at the observatory. It'd be detrimental to my career to not go. I mean, I booked this half a year ago and I'm not letting you talk me out of it." She zipped up the suitcase and rolled it to the door. Loki stepped aside to let her pass, but maintained his uninvolved attitude.

"Why do I have to go? I am perfectly capable of staying here."

"I am not leaving you alone here for a minute—"

"Because you think I will try to subjugate humanity again?" he quipped with a smirk.

"No," Jane replied coldly, "Because I just don't trust you."

"You trusted me enough to take me back to Asgard."

"And you locked me in a room when we got there. That is a terrible example!" She swept across the living room, gathering up her jacket, scarf and shoes from the couch.

Loki pushed his long hair back and explained in expertly slow terms, "I needed to prevent you from interfering. I let you out, did I not? I am back in this place, aren't I? Why would I be here if I did not intend to honor our bet?"

"Whatever," she dismissed his comments flippantly. "Now, get ready, we can't be late; it takes forever to get through the security. Do you have everything ready to go?"

"I suppose."

Quickly doing a run through of the house, Jane checked to make sure everything was off, the windows were locked, and closed all the doors. The doors were her paranoid way of knowing if anyone came in uninvited while she was gone. When all of these were in order, she went to the door and put on her shoes. To her exasperation, Loki still hadn't moved an inch. She draped a brown sport-coat over his shoulders and pushed him toward the door. He seemed amused by her efforts and humored her by edging over.

"Alright, now, make yourself look like this guy." She pointed to a small photograph in the passport she'd just illegally purchased the day before. The fellow in the passport had a dense, brown toothbrush mustache and an overly large nose which accentuated his expression of smelling something unpleasant.

"My name is_ Elbert_ _Remington_?"

"It's the best I could do," Jane explained sarcastically, "I'm sorry he's not as handsome as you'd hoped."

Loki gave her a look of contempt. Unphased, Jane pointed to the passport again and cleared her throat expectantly. He took a good look at the photograph and concentrated on the illusion. Without warning, he was the dour middle-aged man in the passport, tight lips and perpetual frown included. Jane took back the passport and studied it for a minute before adding, "Could you make yourself just a bit shorter? And a bit heavier?"

Her companion shrank and grew in her suggested dimensions.

"Now, can you slouch a bit? He seems like a sloucher."

The mustached man narrowed his eyes at her and huffed, "I refuse. It's bad enough I have to pretend to be this oaf."

"Okay, fine, let's just go." Jane opened the door and pushed her luggage out before gesturing for him to do the same. After locking the door, she took out her phone and called Erik. The phone rang five times, but alas, no answer. Of course.

"Hey, I'm on my way to the airport. I'm sorry about what I said the other night. I know you're just looking out for me, but I'm a grown woman and I'll be alright. Please don't worry about me," she stopped before adding, "I'm not in trouble. I'll share the data with you when I get back. Take care, Erik."

Sometimes she wondered if he actually knew how to listen to voicemails. She hoped he did.

—

—

The line at the airport was comparatively short. People seemed to prefer staying home rather than traveling in the autumn chill. On top of that, the sky was mercifully clear, a good omen for air traffic. Jane dragged her suitcase to the counter and waited for Loki to catch up. His illusion was fuzzy around the edges as the much shorter image did not match with his actual long stride. The buzz of the airport seemed to fascinate him and he stared at every little corner of large hall.

At the counter, the stewardess took their passports, looked at their faces and clothes then gave them a look of judgement. They must have come across as a strange travelers, like in the movies when time travelers pretended to be from the present and looked ridiculous. With a false, saccharine smile, the lady behind the counter tried to hide her thoughts and asked, "Your destination?"

"JFK then connecting domestically."

"What is your purpose of travel?" She asked slowly, her thick layer of makeup wrinkling as the corners of her mouth stretched.

Jane let out an exasperated sigh, "I'm going to work there."

The lady pried further, her words dripping out painfully slow like thick syrup. "It says here that Mr. Remington is an accountant?"

"He is—this is not a business trip for him."

It seemed to never end. "That's lovely," her gaze flickered between the pair and she seemed to be holding back a giggle that could explode out of her nose at any minute. "Would you like seats together?"

Loki pushed Jane aside and yelled at the woman, "Yes, now get on with it!" His illusion fizzled for a second as he lost control, even his mustache seemed to shake. Several travelers around them turned to stare. Their eyes went from her to the portly man beside her and then to the woman behind the counter. She put a hand on temple to hide her face from them.

This sudden outburst unsettled the woman behind the counter and her perfectly painted-up face fell. She clumsily processed their information then handed Jane two tickets. She resumed her forced smile as she circled the gate number and the boarding time and said sweetly, "Enjoy your flight, Miss Foster, Mr. Remington."

"Thanks," Jane murmured, interested in leaving the awkwardness as quickly as possible.

They departed from the counter, Jane walking as fast as possible. When they were sufficiently far away, she turned for a second. Behind her, Loki chuckled under his breath and whispered to her, "Wait for it."

"Wait for what?"

A loud scream echoed through the ticketing hall. Jane spun around to see a small crowd of airline employees rushing behind the counter that had issued them their tickets. Through the curious guard surrounding the area, Jane could see the horrified face of the woman they'd just spoken to. She was hysterical and looked as though she had seen a ghost.

Pulling her companion aside, Jane demanded, "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Loki feigned innocence.

"You wouldn't be so happy if you did nothing," she hissed.

"I merely left a small surprise in her drawer." He shrugged as if it were of no importance, then proceeded to walk forward. She could see the glee in his steps.

Jane grabbed Loki's arm and pulled him back sharply. "Hey! You can't do things like that here. It may be acceptable where you're from, but this is Earth. You cannot just go around unfairly using your powers. They are people, they are not play things."

He furrowed his brow and said defensively, "That woman was unkind. She deserved it." For a moment, he'd thought Jane would understand.

Jane paused for a moment then said brusquely, "That's not for you to decide."

"I am not a petulant child for you to lecture!" he threw back, clearly irritated with her.

"Then behave yourself."

They proceeded in mutual silence.

Things went well through the first checkpoint, but not through the security line. Jane had a difficult time convincing Loki that he needed to actually remove his shoes and metal items and not just create an illusion of having done so. He didn't seem to grasp that machines couldn't be fooled by visual illusions. Jane went through the metal detector then gestured for Loki to do so as well. To her surprise, he stepped through with no problem.

However, before she could breath a sigh of relief, a security guard put a hand on Loki's arm just as he prepared to put on his shoes.

"Sir, is this your bag?" the guard asked sternly.

"Get your hand off me, you filthy mortal," he replied, highly volatile from his general annoyance with being treated so commonly. They wouldn't be so audacious if they knew who he was...

She dashed forward and pushed the guard's hand away gently, concerned for the safety of the security workers should Loki decide to drop his charade. "Hi, is there a problem here?" Placing herself between the irate Asgardian and the guard, Jane carefully looked to see where everyone's attention was focused.

"Miss, are you traveling with this man?" he asked curtly.

"Yes, what is the problem?"

"There seems to be a sharp object in this bag, and we need to do an in depth search." The man lifted the leather satchel from the machine belt and gestured for them to step over.

Her jaw dropped. A sharp object? Good lord, what could it be? A knife? And what if they got flagged as terrorists—she couldn't even imagine. She berated herself for doing something as stupid as forget to watch him pack. Jane turned to Loki and forced through her teeth, "What did you put in your bag?"

"My scepter," he replied without concern. Typical.

"They're not going to let us go if they see that." Jane pointed to the bag with her eyes and hoped he took the hint. From the corner of her eye, he saw him twitch his hand. The guards opened the bag, rifled through the contents, and gave each other quizzical looks. They sent the bag through the scanner again. Jane nudged Loki and whispered to him about the computer screen. The guards seemed dumbfounded by the scanner and sent the bag back and forth again and again. They squinted and gestured, rubbing their chins trying to find the same image they saw before.

Finally, one of the security workers returned the bag and said sheepishly, "Apologies, please enjoy your trip."

Jane had never felt so relieved in her life. It was disturbing and terrifying that Loki could turn such a simple thing like airport security into a nerve-wrecking trial. Her blood pressure was out of control and she found her hands shaking once she had the mind to notice. She didn't know if she could take two years of this.

"I think that went rather well."

She patted him on the back and bit her tongue. No words, just no words.

—

—

"How long do we have to sit here?"

"It's about seven hours."

"_Seven hours?_"

"Close your eyes and try to sleep."

"How am I to sleep sitting up?"

"Just close your eyes."

She put on her headphones and focused on the little screen to watch a movie. The introduction song hummed along with the plane's engine sputters. Just as the studio image came on the screen, she heard some more murmurs from his direction. Jane glanced over and he was staring intently at her, waiting for her to answer.

"What?" She took off her headphones to hear him more clearly. What was he on about now?

"This is an appallingly plebian way to travel."

Jane rolled her eyes at his sense of entitlement. "Will you get over yourself? You are not a prince or a god right now, you are a fat middle-aged man with a weirdly neat mustache sitting in economy class. Just play this game, ok? Imagine what it would be like to be him for your entire life. You're lucky it's only seven hours. Now, watch a movie or something." She plugged his headphones in and handed them to him.

"Have you any books?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed her unsavory comment. "Yes, let me get one for you."

Shuffling through her suitcase overhead, Jane dug for her books and magazines. She bent down and presented him with two options. "_Journal of Nuclear and Particle Physics_ or _Curvature of Space_? I really don't have anything more accessible."

"Space is curved?"

_Curvature of Space_ it was. She handed him the book then closed up the overhead bin. By the time she was back in her seat, he was already pages in. Perhaps a moment of peace for once. Jane put on her headphones and resumed her movie. Suddenly, someone pulled the headphones off her. She caught the headphones as they fell and immediately glared at Loki. What was it now?

"It says here that the curvature of space is the source of gravity. I cannot picture that. Explain it to me." He gave her an expectant look.

"Are you serious?"

Loki merely stared at her, as if her question were too stupid warranted an answer. She waited a moment before realizing he wasn't going to say anything further. Suddenly flustered about the whole thing, she took the book from him and frantically flipped through it, trying to remember what she'd read. "Um, it's kind of hard to explain," she stammered, reading the chapter headings, but not understanding any of the words.

"Try," he demanded.

"Well, it's just a theory, but imagine you're standing on a scale,yet you're falling. So both you and the scale are falling. In that case, there is no gravity because there is no force pushing you onto the scale. Now imagine, we're on this plane, but the plane is flying up instead of ahead. In that case, there's extra force pushing on us, so we've basically created gravity."

He rubbed his pretend mustache and retorted, "Gravity is just us falling up? That makes _no_ sense. What does that have to do with curvature?"

"Ok, pretend the universe, space, is like a pliable sheet of fabric. This world, your world, the things you call realms, are like intrusions into this fabric. They force the space around them to stretch, to curve. But there is resistance to curvature, and so we, everyone and everything, are feeling the pressure from this anti-curvature. I know that's a bit simplistic, but I can't really think of a better way to explain it." Jane lifted her hands to demonstrate the idea. She curved her hands around an invisible earth and pushed inward.

"Our philosophers believe that gravity is when the realm displays affinity for itself. How do you think that theory compares?"

"Well, that can't be true."

"Why not?"

"Because gravity has the same pull on energy as it does on matter. It's unbiased in its force. Nothing, literally nothing, is exempt. If it were as simple as matter attracting itself, energy would drift from us," She explained excitedly. The idea had never occurred to her before—it was wrong, but it did sound incredibly poetic. The universe held together by matter longing for itself.

Loki thought about her complaint and replied, "But larger realms have more gravity, does that not prove it? More—what you call matter, means more affinity."

Jane gave a bit of a self-satisfied grin. "More matter means more curvature in space, hence more gravity." Check mate.

He wrinkled his brow in thought, determined to prove her wrong. "But space is nothing, how can space curve if it is empty?"

"Because—It's really hard to explain. We're going to have to get into quantum and I really don't want to do that" She scrambled for something to say. He was right that there was nothing in the vacuum. "There's still a lot for us to discover. I wish I knew the answer, we'll just have to see where the science takes us. That's why we're going to Apache Point."

He gave her a smug, victorious smirk and took her answer as an admission of defeat. "So this is what you study?"

"Well, not that exactly, but it's somewhat related. I mean, all particle physics relates to pretty much everything." She leaned back in her seat, but faced him to continue the conversation.

Loki glanced out his window at the ocean below before he turned back to her. "Do you believe your work can lead you to build a bridge similar to the Bifrost?"

"You mean, can we create travel? Well, I should hope so. My research would go to waste if we didn't. I mean, I'm optimistic that it'll happen in the next few years even. Now that I've seen how yours works, I've got a lot of ideas," she replied excitedly. With this, he seemed to suddenly come alive, eyes glittering an unearthly green as he fixated on her words.

"Do you think those on Midgard will demand to use it?"

"I don't think so, not at first" Jane said in a low voice, unsettled by his sudden interest. "People don't like unsheltered transport. I mean, look at this plane, we're about as shielded from the world as we can be. An Einstein-Rosen bridge form of transport would be too horribly uncomfortable. I think it'd be a bit of a novelty only until they could create ships for it."

He gave her an incredulous look. "You consider this comfortable?"

"Yes," she responded adamantly, "Think about how wonderful it is to have shelter from the elements. We can fly in snow, in rain, against wind."

"You would rather be be packed into this meager vessel with strangers than out there alone?" He pointed out the window.

"Obviously."

Loki broke their eye contact and stared straight ahead, as if he were investigating some epiphany. If it were not for the way his illusion began to break, Jane would have thought he were simply resting. Instead, she saw glimpses of his real face and the way his mind was racing. Did she say something she shouldn't have? Had she divulged some secret?

Unexpectedly, he turned to her and implored almost forcefully, "Please tell me more."

"About—"

"Your work."

Jane bit her lip in hesitation, suddenly uncomfortable with his attention. She relished the opportunity to talk about her work, yet she had the distinctly uneasy feeling he was playing her. As if sensing her suspicion, Loki said softly, "Those on Asgard have studied what you call astrophysics for many millennia. Perhaps such knowledge can be of use to you. Why reinvent the wheel?"

"Why would you want to help me?"

He smiled.

"Do not be so paranoid, Jane."


	3. Food

**Food**

.

.

The chilly dew-drop air warmed as the light crept from the barren New Mexican desert. Hues of orange shot with smoky clouds colored the horizon, drifting ever upwards with the morning. Within just moments, the darkness all but receded to the very zenith of sky, hanging around as washed-out ink. For some reason, fall sunrises were all uncharacteristically short; they were not the romantic panoramic paintings that summer ones used to be. Drowned out by the bleeding light, all inhabitants of the heavens except the moon vanished. The observatory closed up its domed top for the day. Jane yawned as she packed up her notes and backed up her data.

Across the room, Loki sat in a chair staring out of the only window. It was just a small gap in the wall, no larger than a textbook. If one did not know, they could easily mistake it for a boring portrait on the wall. His long form was reclined on the mesh office chair, feet propped on an old file cabinet. Everything from the way his hair draped over the chair back to the way his shirt tugged slightly upward spoke of the length he'd sat still, as if he had slowly slid down the chair over an immense period of time. He studied the sunrise, blank and expressionless. Only a hunger in his eyes betrayed his mind.

"Does it look the same on Asgard?"

The man broke from his reverie and turned to Jane. She was already fully packed, jacket on, and ready to leave. "No," he replied quickly, getting up from his chair and heading for his own bag.

"What is it like? I've never seen it." Jane followed him as he swung his bag over his shoulders on his way to the door.

"There are two sunrises for we have two suns. It is far more beautiful," he said simply and held the door for her. She found the gesture strangely kind for him. They proceeded through the stairway, hollow footsteps on metal echoing through the tower.

"Wait, Asgard's sun is a binary? Why didn't you tell me?" Jane's mind raced as she digested this new piece of information. She stepped absentmindedly, barely moving down the stairs.

Loki turned around and replied, "You never asked."

His answer left Jane's gaping. She stopped moving. All this time, she'd been searching for a single star when looking for Asgard, but it had been misguided and wasted effort. Binary systems were far more rare—she could have likely found it by now had she'd known. For the first time, she regretted not being completely honest with Loki. If only she'd told him she was also looking for Asgard in addition to her work, maybe he could have told her other crucial information.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the stairs impatiently. "Stop delaying, I am weary of this place."

Jane allowed herself to be tugged along, only half present. Only when she stepped into the frosty desert morning did she emerge from her mind. Shielding her eyes from the rising sun, she walked to her rented truck. Sand had blown over it during the night and rested on the windows in a fine layer. In the car, she turned on the windshield wipers and waited for the grit to clear away.

"Do you want to get something to eat?" She asked Loki, suppressing another yawn.

"No," he replied.

"Well then, back to the house it is." She started the hulking machine and backed out of the parking spot. The engine shook as they drove on the bumpy road back to civilization. It sounded of pebbles and thunder.

"Why do you not go alone?"

Jane looked at him as if he were crazy. "Because eating alone is the saddest thing ever, and I can't let my life can't get any sadder than it already is right now. Erik is angry with me. I can't seem to get good enough data to learn anything. And I've already burned through 30 days of my two year life lease. I'd like to not have to add eating alone to that list." She sighed dramatically and slammed her palms on the steering wheel just to accentuate her point further.

Glancing to her passenger, she saw an amused grin on his severe features.

"Are you laughing at me?" the young woman asked incredulously.

"Of course not," he returned, sounding serious but not coming across as such.

Jane rolled her eyes and muttered to herself while shaking her head, "I swear to God, if you are making fun of me…"

"Let us go," Loki interjected.

"Go where?" she ask, irritation scuffing her normally smooth voice. Refusing to look at him, she concentrated on staying on the path.

"To eat."

"Don't try to pity me. That would be even worse than eating alone," Jane sighed, unimpressed by his attempt to humor her. She turned onto a paved road and sped toward town. There was not a soul for miles, just sprawling yellow land and rock, interrupted by the occasional unyielding cactus. If it were not for circumstance, she would have felt soothed by the sight. Weeks in the desert were what dreams were spun on, spanning the cosmos and reminding her they were not alone.

"Jane."

She finally turned and looked over at him. "What?"

"Let us go," he repeated casually, a sly sort of smile playing on the corners his lips.

Jane paused and contemplated him. The muscles of her face tensed as she clenched her jaw in thought. She just couldn't shake the disingenuous feeling that tainted every word from his mouth. Maybe that was the only way which he knew to speak, she thought. Rationalizing and understanding was the only thing that prevented her from internalizing the charade.

She made an aggravated noise when her hunger won over her better judgement. She insisted, "Fine. We'll go, but because you want to go."

He gave her a devilish smile, satisfied that he'd convinced her. Everything with Jane seemed to be a battle, and he was endlessly amused by the way a few simple words could cause her painful internal debates and irrational outbursts.

Jane sensed his snide satisfaction and shot him a glare before she flipped on the radio. The tuning was off and only static noise came from the speakers, but she didn't bother changing it. Any noise was a welcome filler to push out the words that may come between them. She suddenly wondered where Thor was and what he was doing. Was he thinking of her? Glancing over at her passenger, she wondered if he knew what his brother was up to. Better not ask.

An hour later, Jane pulled into the edge of town and parked at a diner. 6:30am, just the right time for some breakfast. Loki had fallen asleep listening to the white noise and smooth desert highway. The thought crossed her mind to leave him be, but she thought better of it and shook him awake. "Come on, sleeping beauty. We're here. It's coffee time."

The dark-haired man awoke with a start, panic registering in his dilated pupils. He'd been dreaming of something terrifying and reached for her throat on instinct. Jane felt his ice cold hand close around her throat painfully. Drowning in air, she frantically struggled, waving her limbs in every direction and pulling futilely at the dashboard and its buttons. As he became lucid and aware of his surroundings, Loki suddenly released her. Jane collapsed backwards, brown hair splayed across the seat wildly as she slid down into the legroom of the drivers seat. He seemed surprised at her wheezing form state for a split second, frozen in an indescribable shock. Once the moment passed, he resumed his usual look of unconcerned apathy. Before she could say anything, he opened his door and exited.

Jane practically fell out of the driver's side when she pulled the door handle. The large height difference between the truck's step and the ground caused her knees to malfunction as she shakily stepped out. She held onto the car for support as she rounded the large corroded hood to go after him.

"Stop! What the hell was that?" she yelled, hoarse from the ordeal.

He turned back and waited for her to stumble to him. There was no amusement in his voice this time. "You startled me. You should know better," he replied coldly.

The young woman's eyes widened in disbelief. It was her fault? He tried to strangle her and it was her fault? Anger welled up inside her and she slapped him hard. The unexpected force of her hand against his face caused him to sway back a bit. His black hair spilled across his face, covering the reddening mark. She could feel her hand stinging from the contact and hoped that his face felt it twice as much.

"YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!" Jane shouted, her anger seeping through every pore.

Loki turned slowly, his eyes narrowing. He was not playing for an audience any longer and the full brunt of his presence flooded out. It was time she was reminded of her place. The air seemed to crackle between them, harbinger for a storm to come.

He reached forward and gripped her arm, fingers tightening until Jane gasped in pain. In that instance, she felt smaller than she'd ever been as he towered over her. His face was inches from hers as he leaned down to meet her. Jane could help but shiver slightly in fear as frosty green eyes stared into her, piercing her. His gaze was like poison, paralyzing, stealing all the warmth from within. Time stopped for Jane, seconds stretching into minutes, and her heart seemed to stop altogether. Everything was so cold in this stretch of reality.

He spoke, voice low and dangerous. "And you should not forget that I can. Do not think yourself special, Jane. You are beginning to bore me. It is by mercy that I play this pathetic game with you." The sound seemed to exponentially echo, taking up physical space. Loki felt her grow weak, her eyes unseeing and fixated on him, as if in a trance. The feeling unsettled him and he carelessly threw her from him as she had burnt him.

Jane stumbled a step, letting out a icy breath she had not even realized she'd been holding. Time, color, warmth crashed back in a tidal wave to fill the void of sensory desertion. Maddening thumps and a sudden flood of blood out from her heart threatened to cause her chest to cave in on itself. The shocked woman curved her shoulders inward and doubled over, clutching at her chest to protect her heart. This must be what dying felt like.

Slowly, one by one, her senses reignited and her body recovered. Jane snuck a glance up at Loki and her brown eyes watered. However, it was not herself that she felt her eyes blurring for. In the dilated moment, she'd felt something unexpected as she slipped into another world. Its crystal clarity and cutting realism swept her away so fiercely that she almost mistook it as her own emotion. Under his threat, his power and layers of illusion, she'd seen that he was afraid. Of what, she didn't know, but she felt his fear and it was the type of world-shattering hell that nightmares were built upon.

Suddenly, she lost her hold on the feeling and felt it replaced by the distraction of her surroundings. She suddenly noticed the 80's music softly playing from the diner and the quaintness of such a small town locality. The dingy neon welcome sign buzzed softly in the window beside her, something she'd not even registered until now. It was a stark contrast to where she had just been. The surreal irrelevance of the setting around them seemed almost comedic. Jane wiped the watery corners of her eyes on her sleeves. She tried to put on a brave face.

He was just as afraid as her.

"Are you coming?"

Her eyes snapped up to Loki. He'd transformed expertly into a jovial fellow, devoid of any shadow of his earlier self. But that had been the real him, her mind whispered, this was merely a facade. He called out to her, as if nothing at all had happened.

Jane stood upright, stunned by the way he seamlessly shifted his persona as if the process were automated by the flip of a switch. Her brows furrowed in disbelief as he swung the diner door open. Hung bells on the door hinge jingled as he held door for her and gestured for her to come. She tentatively stepped forward, stunned by his sudden change. When she passed him in the doorway, he gave her a smile, but Jane could only see the coldness within it.

An old man with a giant potbelly and a frog-like face appeared behind the counter and greeted Jane kindly, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth creasing deeply as he gave her a cheerful grin. "I'm afraid it's just me this morning, go ahead and order here. What can I get you, hon?" He asked as he wiped his hands on the white apron hanging loosely on his sloped shoulders.

"Two of whatever the most popular item is, please," she replied, unable to even briefly skimming the dusty red plastic lettering menu on the wall. Somewhere between the car and the diner, she'd lost her appetite.

"The breakfast bonanza plate is our best seller right—"

"That one." She cut him off.

The fry cook blinked at her, unsure of what to make of the scene. When Jane gave no response, he recovered quickly and gave her a friendly wink. The man waddled through a swinging door into the back and called, "Coming right up!"

Jane crossed her arms and walked to a small table by the window where the humming neon sign hung. A shiver ran through her as Loki sat down across from her, casually putting his elbows on the table and leaning forward with interest. Pulling her arms tighter around her, the young woman tried to ignore the discomfort of his proximity. She was so tired. How was she supposed to win the bet like this?

"Explain it to me, Jane. Tell me why it is you refuse to eat alone."

Breaking her staring contest with the window, Jane glanced at him. Loki swept his dark hair back and tilted his head expectantly. She huffed an indignant breath and turned back to the glowing morning outside. Sick of the provocation, she shut him out. This was too much; he'd worn her down until despair had stolen all her words.

"Come now, Jane," he said with an audible smirk, "You are supposed to educate me, are you not?"

Jane continued to stare out the window, refusing to acknowledge him.

"So silent, this is unlike you, Jane."

She closed her eyes and recited the Hamiltonian equation in her head. Anything to drown him out. H is equal to P squared over two M plus V where V is the function q alone and time derivative of velocity. Maybe she would even derive it. Which way? Lagrangian or Riemamnian, that was the question. Lagrangian seemed the longer route.

"Two breakfast bonanzas!" A cheerfully gruff voice announced, directly followed by clinking plates and coffee cups on their table. Jane turned and gave the old man a forced smile as he laid the rest of their order down. It was miraculous how he'd been able to carry so much with only his two hands. "Enjoy!" he spouted brightly before slowly swaying back to the kitchen on his disproportionately small feet.

Jane reached for the rolled up napkin to take out utensils. At the same moment, Loki caught her hand and closed his long fingers around her palm. The surprise and strange gentleness of his touch made her take a small, audible breath. Her brown eyes met green and she felt the edges of herself being pulled into the void again.

"Don't tell me you are angry," he said in his typical amused, self-satisfied quality.

Sharply retracting her hand from his, Jane turned her gaze down at her food. She tried to ignore him, but she knew it was childish to behave this way. He expected this of her. He fed off her irritation and malaise. She stared at her eggs and sausages. Loki would never see her as his equal no matter how clever she was, no matter how many arguments she won. Fighting with words was only wearing herself out. What did her father used to say? When they push, you pull. That's how you win.

She was stronger than this, she could put up a front as good as anyone. A new plan formed in her mind. She would be just as unreadable as him, feign interested in him, give him no reasons to doubt her. Mother Theresa, think of Mother Theresa, everyone deserves care. Yes, she wanted this. Fake it until you become it.

Shifting into her own new persona of never-ending kindness, she lifted her face and smiled at him. She pictured him as his brother, as someone who needed her. The agitation in her bled away, leaving only calm and she smiled in earnest. No reason to be so reactionary. There was only one way to fight malice, and it was with mindfulness. It was the one thing Jane doubted Loki could understand. She wasn't going to play the game; she was above it.

Jane unrolled her napkin and took out her fork and knife. She felt ravenous.

"Eating alone is sad because," she began with a new energy, regarding him as if their time together were precious and fleeting. "Food is for communion. It's for sharing. It is how we build trust in each other. When we eat the same food, we know that there is no poison or ill will. Food is a tool which can keep friendships and families together. Sometimes it's the only occasion for people speak to each other."

Loki flinched, taken aback by the sudden change in her demeanor. She seemed to command his attention with every word. He had not believed her to be capable of such nuanced performance. Perhaps he had misjudged her. Suddenly, he felt a renewed interest in the small woman before him.

Jane smiled wider, this time in triumph.

"How could anyone waste something as powerful as food by eating alone? It's one of the few gifts we have." The young woman leaned forward, daring him to intimidate her. She tied her best to gaze at him as if he were the most interesting person in the world, taking in every detail: his wax-like pallor, the way he held his hands, the fluidity of his movements.

"And are we to trust each other now?" he asked, clearly entertained by the beginnings of their exchange.

Jane cut into her eggs and took her first bite.

"Wouldn't count on it, sometimes food is just food."

Loki laughed.

.

.


	4. Likeness

**Likeness**

.

* * *

"And where are we on this tree?"

"Midgard is here, in this arm edge." Loki drew a box around the end of a thin branch.

Jane peered down at the detailed drawing, her hair brushing against the paper. He'd drawn her a map of Yggdrasil which connected the nine realms. Its long pathed branches were sketched out in surprising detail. Loki rolled onto his back, tired of propping himself on his elbows. The beige carpet of the observatory's spartan office felt rough against his back, but he was too exhausted to complain about them lying on the floor. There was only one chair in the office and neither of them were about to stand despite both being too proud to admit it.

"I have to say, this MUCH better than the map Thor drew me," Jane admitted as she traced the path from Midgard to Asgard across the page. She laid on her stomach beside him, resting her chin on her forearm.

He turned his head to right, face inches from the paper on the floor and muttered spitefully, "I doubt Thor has ever read a book."

The scientist rolled her eyes at his quip and continued to study the cosmic map.

"And the bifrost are the branches?"

"Precisely."

"But it can't actually look like a tree. I mean, Einstein-Rosen bridges don't have 3-dimensional, physical representations. It can't be a tree."

"Have some imagination, Jane. Of course it doesn't look like a tree from the inside."

Jane furrowed her brow in thought, still unconvinced. "Ok, let's say for the sake of argument it's objectively a tree. What happens if reach a branch point? Like here." She pointed to the y-shaped joint between two separate arms in his diagram.

Loki lifted his head slightly and strained to see the point where her finger pointed. "The bifrost is not a vessel, it does not need navigation. Think of it as a gate. There is a beacon on either side and when you enter, it sends you to its corresponding beacon using whatever path is possible—the spatial space is irrelevant."

She bit her lips at this. What was a beacon? What did this mean for the Aether? Was something on Asgard a beacon for the Aether? It all seemed honestly improbable. She didn't even know which direction in the sky to point the telescope for Asgard, let alone solve something so complex. Suddenly, she had an idea. There was a way to find the direction, after all. Wordlessly, she got to her feet and dashed to the office corner, fiercely searching on its over-stuffed and leaning bookshelf.

"What now?"

"Just wait!" She called back as she bent to the right to read the spines. Fingers running over each title, she drummed against the dusty tomes to release the sudden rush of adrenalin in her system. After two shelves, she finally found what she was looking for and pulled it out roughly. The bookcase creaked as the large textbook's absence caused the books around it to collapse into the space it left behind.

Jane threw the book down on the floor next to Loki then sat down before it. Unimpressed, Loki raise an eyebrow but remained motionless. She shook his arm, coaxing him to sit up as well. Reluctantly, the man pulled himself upright, muttering a string of profanity and clearly disgruntled.

"Ok, now, if we draw a straight line between where Earth is and where Asgard is on this map you've drawn," she said excitedly as she penciled in the path, "we should share the same sky at this very point." She circled the space between the two realms.

Loki narrowed his eyes and contemplated her words with skepticism.

"No, hear me out!" She continued in a frenzy, "We should theoretically share this view of space, but what is seen on Asgard is just a mirror image of what we see here! This is a book with constellations we see here on earth. If any of these are familiar to you, but flipped, then that is the direction of Asgard. The only problem is if you can't identify your own constellations…"

"I am no fool. I'll have you know—" he erupted, clearly insulted at her insinuations.

"Great!" she interjected, cutting him off. Breaking open the dense book, Jane turned to a spring star map and pointed to each of the constellations pictured in the circle. Patiently, she flipped through the individual constellation images and explained their images. Somewhere after four pages or so, he placed a hand over hers and stopped her from flipping forward.

"Stop, I can do this faster." He took the book, leaving Jane somewhat speechless. She stared at Loki, breathing fast in excitement as he studied the little white dots connected by equally miniscule white lines. Flipping through the pages quickly, he searched for anything familiar. Tens of pages went through unimpressively and Jane felt her anticipation anxiety rising. What if he didn't see anything? This was their last day at the observatory, time had run out.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, Loki stopped and turned the book to her again. "This," he pointed the constellation in the shape of a large sideways W. "It is inverted and missing a star. We call this Kormt, the river."

Craning her head to look, Jane studied the constellation's simple shape. "That's Cassiopeia," she whispered, barely able to conceal her joy. Her bright eyes met his and she laughed in disbelief at how easy it turned out to be. "Come on, let's go the telescope." Pushing her brown hair behind her ears, she sprang to her feet and extended her hand out to pull him up.

Loki regarded her hand with a puzzled expression before cautiously taking it. He found himself jolted upright with a force which defied what seemed possible from Jane's petite frame. Wasting no time, she pulled him out of the office and toward the telescope control station. Dealing with the equipment was a frenzy of buttons and strange sounds. Loki stood back and allowed Jane to deal with the machines. She's made it explicitly clear that he was to not touch them, slapping his hand away everytime he reached for anything.

Jane opened the platform and engaged the on-board computer of the telescope. The computer clicked in its analogue language, lights yellow and warning her to wait. She tapped her nails on the keyboard, willing it to hurry up. Finally, the lights turned green and she was free to move the scope.

Overhead, the giant telescope began to move with a steady mechanical hum. It centered itself vertically before the entire ceiling doom began to rotate to the coordinates Jane inputed. They were in luck that the constellation was high on the horizon still. Furiously typing and clicking on the computer, Jane focused the telescope to the center of Cassiopeia and scanned for deep space objects, binary star systems in particular.

"What do you see?" Loki asked, attempting to hide his impatience but utterly failing. She could hear that he was as excited as her and it brought a grin to her lips.

"Be patient," she chided.

The computer remained blank as Jane scanned the region. Minutes dragged on as she scoured the skies, a terribly anti-climatic outcome. An hour went by with nothing. Only a dusty grey mass of pixels and a few tiny white spots repeatedly appeared every now and then. Nothing indicative of a binary system or even something closely resembling one appeared in the area.

"What is that? It has appeared many times." He pointed to the fuzzy grey mass as it flashed across the screen again.

"It's not what we're looking for," Jane replied, disappointed in their lack of progress.

"Can I see it?"

She gave him a hopeless look and focused the telescope further to gain resolution. The computer beeped softly as the program averaged captures to give them an image. After several minutes of waiting, a hazy image with many glowing spots surrounded by a cloud of dust opened.

"What is it?" Loki asked, leaning forward to better inspect the picture.

"It's a nebula, where stars are born," Jane explained, sounding defeated as she slumped back in the office chair. She cradled her head in her hand, severely deflated. All they found were some single stars and a nebula. Asgard had never seemed so far away as it did now. Her eyes swept the nebula image. So far away.

Suddenly, she jumped out of her seat, an epiphany on the tip of her tongue.

"Loki, I think this is Asgard. Or will be. Or was. Or could be. I don't know how to say it."

He shook his head thinking she'd gone mad.

"No, it is! Don't you see it? Starlight is on one heck of a delay. Asgard is so far away that by the time the light around it has reached us to be recorded on this image, it has already traveled a few billion years. All we can see now is Asgard being born within that nebula because that light had to come such a long way. By the time the light from today's Asgard reaches Earth, it will have been a few billion more years. Most of what is in the sky has already died by the time we see it. It makes so much sense!" She spoke quickly, rushing to get her ideas out before they eluded her.

Loki rested his chin on this hands and stared hard at the nebula image, thoughts running wild.

"It's so beautiful," Jane murmured as she zoomed into the cloud.

A strange transcendence permeated his thoughts. He turned upwards toward the sliver of dark sky in the dome. The vast emptiness and distance above replaced his certainty with insignificance; he was at once present and adrift. At that moment in time, in the sky, they, he, was just dust in that very real cradle, only energy and disordered atoms. Yet he was here, he was real, Asgard was real. Or was it? Perhaps it was more adept to say he did not exist.

In the face of such paradox, Midgard was suddenly so far, so alien, despite being beneath his very feet. Loki set his gaze on Jane whose nose was almost touching the screen as she explored the image with fascination. How fortunate it was to see without understanding, he thought.

Rising, the dark-haired man turned from the computer monitors. "Find me when you have completed you work," he said simply before walking away.

"What about the ICP-MS? The samples will be ready in half an hour. You're supposed to help me with that!" Jane protested, puzzled by his sullen departure.

"You will manage."

He left without a single look back.

.

.

Jane loaded the last of her ICP-MS samples onto the machine's plastic test tube rack. The fluid in each tube was a scorched yellow, discoloring the tubes themselves. A chemically warm smell wafted above the open samples. Jane handled them with a cavalier sort of carelessness. They probably should have been in a chemical hood to catch the toxic fumes from hours of digestion in acid. No big deal, she was certainly going to develop cancer at some point anyway, she rationalized. All good scientists did.

The samples were dilutions of a small amount of blood she'd drawn from herself. She suspected the Aether was not some mystical substance but just a heavy metal compound. It was brightly colored and could not be destroyed—hallmarks of a substance forged from atoms smashed together in the heart of collapsed novas. And nothing was better at identifying and detecting trace heavy metals than the plasma mass spec. The autosampler of the machine clicked and the peri-pump churned, taking in the first sample, shooting it into the vaporizer.

Sufficiently satisfied that the machine was working correctly, Jane left it to run on its own.

Her first stop was the office. It was empty. She stacked up her print outs of their deep space search around Cassiopeia and shoved them into her bag. Next, she checked each of the instrument rooms. A big of panic rose in her throat when she could not find Loki anywhere.

"Loki!" she called out from the ground floor, her voice echoing through the domed building. No response.

Jane rushed back to the office and grabbed her coat, fearing that he'd left altogether. In truth, she was more fearful of what he'd do in her absence than the fact that he was gone. Her boots made thunderous clanks as she sped down the stairs, practically falling forward with the momentum. Bursting from the observatory door, Jane ran around the building frantically searching for any sign of him.

"Loki!" she called again, this time, her voice blew away into the desert night, barely audible.

Jane paced back and forth in the park lot, rubbing her temples, desperately running through options. She could drive around and look for him, but what good was that to look for someone who could be halfway around the world by now? What if he was wrecking havoc somewhere? This was not happening. This was not happening. What kind of Scheherazade was she if she couldn't even keep him in her sight? The young woman kicked the gravel and let out a growl in frustration, mostly angry at herself for trusting him to stay with her.

Stamping her way to the truck, she tried to calm the panic away. Driving was the only thing she could do at the moment. When she reached the truck, Jane did a doubletake as she saw someone laying in the truck bed, long legs hanging over the lowered back. She let out a huge sigh of relief. Leaning over the edge, she saw him staring up at the sky on his back, an arm behind his head.

"Christ, I was looking for you everywhere!"

"Why, I hadn't heard at all. You are magnificently subtle," he replied sarcastically.

"I was worried. What are you doing out here?" She asked, shaking her head, shivering and worn from the panic over nothing. Her brown hair flipped across her face with a gust of wind, and she quickly tucked it behind an ear.

"I am so very honored to warrant your worry." He smirked at her earnest concern.

Swallowing back an insult, Jane walked around the back and struggled to push herself onto the truck bed as well. Awkwardly leveraging weight with her knees, she slung her weight forward, barely making it onto the back. Winded by the struggle, she crawled forward and stretched herself out beside him. The sky was teeming with stars of all intensities, an endless Van Gogh painting. The bumpy metal grooves dug into her back, but she focused her mind to cut out the discomfort.

"What are you look for, anyway?"

He paused before noncommittally stating, "Bright lights."

Jane dismissed his sarcasm. "Home?"

Silence.

"How are you not cold?" she inquired casually, pulling her wax-cotton coat tighter to shut out the chill. It baffled her how he could go without a jacket in the cold desert night.

Loki made a face.

"I have never felt cold," he replied bitterly, the innocuous answer colored with deep resentment.

Jane glanced over at him incredulously, but took the hint and pushed no further. A second later, he suddenly added a non-sequitur. "Jane, do you ever find that the more you discover, the more you are simply learning how alone you truly are?"

Jane turned to watch him, baffle by the philosophical nature of his question. The paleness of Loki's skin made his features all the more severe in the starlight. His sunken eyes focused to the sky with the quiet desperation of a fish out of water. She thought carefully about the question, assessing what he wanted to hear, why he asked. When her thoughts became a jumble of analysis, she gave up and opted for honesty.

"Everyday," she whispered with a sigh.

He turned abruptly, caught by her answer. Her admission pulled his interest away from the crowded sky. The sudden and unexpected closeness of his gaze made Jane draw in a breath of surprise. Caught between the emotion of terrible discomfort and intense curiosity, she did not know what to do. It felt as though a coveting glance at an unsuspecting object had suddenly been noticed, forcing her to bravely forge forward or retract in denial.

Closing her eyes to avoid his piercing stare, Jane opened her mouth to speak but found herself grasping for words. "I guess, It's like with every little thing I learn on my own, the chances of someone understanding me grows exponentially smaller. And—I don't know—"

"And you begin to suspect that there will never be anyone," he rushed to finish her thought.

Jane's eyes flew wide open.

"Yes," she breathed. "But you have to keep hope that there you will one day be fortunate."

Loki gave her a strange look. With one fluid motion, he withdrew his arm from under his head and folded his hands together, eyes never leaving Jane. It was as though he were purposefully unnerving her, but instead of recoiling, she felt a vacuum that only pulled her forward. Just when Jane felt the need to say something else, he laughed and remarked, "What you believe is absurd. Fortune is the delusion of a desperate mind."

"Why does it have to be that way?"

"Because it is better to just accept."

She regarded him with calm consideration. The more he spoke, the more she could feel the inherent loneliness etched into his shadowy face. In his eyes, she found herself reflecting back. "If you really feel that, then I am very sad for you."

He sneered in contempt. "How—touching, Jane. It is pathetic to fear solitude."

"No," she stated resolutely. Standing by her opinion was easy when she knew he was only half-convinced, taking his stance as a forced reaction rather than true belief. "It's natural to fear being alone. People come into this world in the presence of others, born to the beating sound of our mothers' hearts. We aren't meant to be alone. No matter how much you want to accept the reality of being alone, you'll always be yearning for more. You can think what you want, but it is true delusion to fight yourself."

It was Loki's turn to falter. He quickly turned back to the sky as if it burned him to look at Jane.

"Perhaps you are right," he conceded.

Jane couldn't help but smile as she, too, turned up to the cosmos. The stars had migrated to where she could no longer find Cassiopeia from their vantage point. Clearest blue had begun to light the horizon. It was nearing dawn.

"What are you feeling for breakfast today?" She yawned.

"Sleep."

"I know, right? I feel like I could just close my eyes for weeks."

"Astronomy is the worst profession."

She laughed, "No, let me tell you about the worst job I ever had. I worked in a warehouse finding things that people had bought online. The things people buy when they think no one is looking..."

They laid outside for a while, talking about everything and nothing, watching the sky slowly catch fire. Much was said, but little remembered. Their time was saturated with an intangible murkiness, so much so that Jane almost swore that she'd fallen asleep and none of it was real. In truth, it felt like she was in a play—the blurry lines went on forever.

As the tide of morning rose, they made their way back into the facility to close it down for the last time. One by one, Jane shut down the machines, backed up her data, and readied them for the next researchers. The only thing left was the ICP-MS which had just finished running.

Jane approached the large machine with a mix of anxious excitement and debilitating fear. First, she rinsed the lines and turned off the machine. Then she took out the tray of tubes and placed them in the adjacent counter, ready to be dumped into the acid waste container..

"What is in these?" Loki bent over to inspect the scorched conical tubes curiously. He could smell the corrosive substance inside.

"Just geological samples," she replied dismissively, lying with ease. When Loki reached for the sample tubes with his bare hands, she added sternly, "Hey! Don't touch that, the acid will burn you."

"Doubtful."

"Fine, go ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Jane turned her attention back to the computer and flipped through the mass spec graphs and tables. Her blood samples had the usual biologic transition metal suspects: iron, zinc, manganese. A tiny blip at 110m/z was highly unusual. What was 110 anyway? She didn't think it was even naturally occurring. Quickly, she scrolled to the right for the high mass regions. There were five spikes in the range above 130, indicating what she had suspected, ultra heavy elements.

Feeling clever and satisfied, she hit print on the data. When the pages came out of the printer, she flipped to the table view on the computer and tried to match up numbers to the graphs. An awful sense of dread replaced her excitement as she went over the results again. She couldn't quite say what the problem was, but the more she looked, the more the knot in her stomach grew. Yet should could not piece it together. It was as though her mind was blocking out something she'd known all along.

She stared at the graph again. Three, four, five heavy species above the heaviest known element, each separated from each other by exact decreasing mass units. Each of the species was proportionally lower in abundance to the one before it. Her heart stopped as a hypothesis dawned on her. Jane rushed out of the tiny instrument room, hastily pushing past Loki. She rummaged through the cabinets of the room next door. Crashing from drawer to drawer, she searched for a small metal instrument: a geiger counter.

When she found the object, she ran back to the ICP-MS, breathless and panicked. Her hands shook as she turned the small knob on the geiger counter. It flared to life, its thin black needle swinging across the glass-plated face with a beep. Holding the microphone-like nozzle to the sample tubes, the little box spat out a string of static clicks. It was her worst nightmare; her blood samples were inarguably radioactive.

"No, no, no—" she whispered to herself in despair.

When she surveyed the samples again, going from dilute to concentrated. The clicks grew louder and the needle flickered to the right, perfectly scaling up with the quantity of blood. Whatever the Aether was, it was made of the densest, most unstable atom in the universe, and even at miniscule amounts, it was slowly pouring out a steadily increasing stream of ionizing radiation. From the graph, she knew there were four decays, four serial cycles of positron emissions spinning out dangerous alpha, beta, gamma particles.

"What is wrong?"

Jane shuddered out a shaky breath. The words rushed to her throat, ready to leap from her lips. She set the geiger counter down, and fell into the desk chair, stunned and unable to speak. Her eyes swept the paper graph on the table. It was so tempting to tell him, to lean on him, just so she would not have to face mortality alone.

"I—" she began but could not bring herself to divulge something better left unknown.

But the trouble with secrecy is that everything outside begins to feel saturated with ugliness, and the only place to run is deeper into the secret. She needed to hear that everything was going to be fine, that someone would take care of her. But there was no one. Jane felt as though she would collapse like a paper doll under the weight of the burden.

"It's not what I expected," she managed to croak out.

Scenarios of gradual radiation poisoning filled her mind.

At first, it would be slow and undetectable, but over time the Aether would destroy the DNA in her cells. Her body would lose its ability to heal itself. Then would come the nausea, the wasting, as the radiation increased from secondary emissions. She would lose her hair, her nails, her ability to fight infections. If she was lucky, she might get cancer and die quickly. If not, she would languish as her organs slowly shut down from anemia, each one dying faster than the one before it.

The floor seemed to turn into quicksand, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Jane couldn't take her eyes off the page. Images of her inevitable illness flooded her mind, frail and dying in a hospital bed. How much time did she have? Was it months? Years? Would it not even matter? Barely able to keep herself from folding inward, she gripped the edge of the table, knuckles whitening as she pressed harder.

There was a time bomb inside of her, ticking away with malicious athleticism.

And no one could save her. Not Thor. Not Erik. Not the greatest doctor in the world.

No one.

"Jane." A voice called, sounding far away, distorted and filtered through layers of film. Her brain could barely register it; all that her ears captured was translated as static.

"Jane!" Loki grabbed her shoulder.

Slowly, she looked up toward the source of the touch, unable to really see him at all. The blood had drained from her face, leaving her cheeks feeling like a thousand pins and her vision swimming into white. And suddenly she felt so heavy, as though the joints holding up her skull had turned to jello and could no longer support any weight. Through the haze, she saw paper flying everywhere, funneling into a place she could not see. She felt herself slipping from the chair, flowing downward like water.

A strong arm caught her and held her upright.

"Jane, what is wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine," she protested, shaking her head and weakly prying him away with her small hands. Jane tried to stand, but could not will her legs to move in sync. "I'm fine," she repeated, not to convince herself than anyone else.

The glowing computer monitor slowly can into focus and she found herself able to see again.

"Stop, I'm fine," she insisted.

But before she could further recover, Jane felt a hand on her forehead and sudden silence engulfed everything. It drew back a memory of her at her noisy fifth birthday party, dunking her head into a pool and suddenly hearing nothing. However, this was a type of nothingness she had never before experienced—like words had suddenly disappeared and she was incapable of thought.

Blind, deaf, dissociated, Jane felt herself being tugged toward the sky. Away and further into a box where nothing existed.

It was cold, but she found it oddly comforting.

.

.


	5. Haven

**Haven**

* * *

.

.

The nothingness gradually repopulated with being like a person transforming into old age, so subtly and slow that it was hard to see it happening. Jane thrashed about the small room, her brain fighting to connect to her limbs. Her fingers became tangled in the clear tubing of the plasma mass spec, pulling and twisting deep into the rats nest of plastic strings. Funny how the harder she pulled, the more she became entrenched in the mess. She hadn't seem to notice before just how much endless tubing the machine had.

Fighting the growing monster, she crashed against the counter. The tray of acid digested samples clattered to the ground, splashing their contents onto the concrete floor. The fluid hissed and fumed hot vapors. Stormy red bloomed into the growing puddles, eating away at everything they touched. Jane felt herself burning up in the heat.

Recoiling from the acid spill, she desperately tried to edge away but found herself immobilized by the tangle of machine tubing. The hungry red puddle grew steadily in her direction, melting the very floor as though it were hot lava.

"Loki! Help me!" she screamed, voice trembling.

But the room was empty except for her and the devoured floor. As the floor caved, the tables and machines tumbled into the burning abyss below. The acid touched her left foot and she too was burning, dissolving, falling.

Free falling.

_Dying._

Jane woke with a start.

She was smothered and tangled in unbearably hot blankets. Breathing haggard and heart thundering, her body could hardly move.

Disorienting daylight invaded her vision, incessantly prying at her eyelids. Her mind was a jumble, finding it difficult to inhabit the waking world when faced with the additional challenge of a pair of functional eyes and a solid body. Unwittingly, she grasped around her to brace against the vertigo of dream falling.

Slowly, Jane blinked her way into the light. Throwing the blankets aside, she groggily pushed herself out of the bed. Jeans and wrinkled flannel clothed her, clinging from yesterday's wear. She squinted at the bed again. Since when did the observatory have a bed?

When she tried to stand, her fell to the floor ungracefully. Her left leg had fallen asleep and stung with each movement she tried to make. Grasping at the bed, she managed to sit crookedly on the floor. The furry rug under her surrounded her fingers as she tried to push herself up again. Furry rug, her mind took note, there was a furry rug in the rental house. Suddenly, like a mute instantaneously blessed with words, Jane could reason again.

She was sitting on the floor of her rental bedroom, still wearing yesterday's jeans and purple check shirt. Which was disgusting, she noted. It was day, the day before they were to leave to return to London. But how had she gotten there? The last thing she remember was clutching at the table in the observatory, insisting she was fine, and falling into the floor. No, she stopped, that last part had not been real.

Determined to stand, she lifted herself up again, hissing at the shock of pins from her foot. Shakily, she managed to get to her feet, careful to not place much weight on her left leg. Slowly, the blood flowed back and the sharp radiating shocks dulled to mild discomfort. Jane went to her coat slung over the back of a chair and took out her phone.

Its scratched screen read 5pm. She gasped. 5pm? That meant she'd been out for 10 hours.

Quickly shoving the phone into her pocket, she limped to the window and looked out to the driveway. The dusty rental truck was haphazardly parked, one front wheel crushing the dry yellow lawn. Jane had no recollection of driving back. Puzzled, she muddled her way to the bedroom door and swung it open. Was he playing a hoax on her? Her blood pressure rose as she held onto the walls for support to get to the living room. To her surprise, Loki was fast asleep on the couch, lying long and fluid like glass in a kiln slowly molding to the shape beneath it. A book—_Curvature of Space_—was still open in his hands, as though he had not meant to doze off but the content was simply too boring compared to the promise of dreams.

When she was closer, she could see his eyelids flickering in REM sleep. If it were not for the dispersed movements on his features, she would have thought him made of elaborate wax. There was a hint of lines around his eyes, small signs of the impossibly subtle emotion she could only remotely describe as sorrow. But there was a vividness and coherence than sorrow did not, and she could not name nor understand the phenomenon for she'd never felt it herself.

Briefly, Jane wondered what he was dreaming about.

The man stirred, shifting his head. Jane immediately backed away from the couch and stayed as quiet as possible, the memory of when she'd last woken him still fresh on her mind. Her stomach turned from the thought and she tip toed back to her room, grabbing her over-flowing bag from the credenza as she passed by it.

In her room, she dumped contents of the backpack onto the desk. The cheap Ikea birch veneer rectangle wobbled in response. Stacks of papers spilled across the water damaged surface, the mismatch of their corners further exaggerating their quantity. Jane pulled the chair by her bed over, not bothering to move her coat before she sat down. She sorted through the first few pages, crowded excel sheets of numbers she didn't care to study at the moment, and paper clipped them away.

A crisp sheet with only a single graph was next. The dark, vertical peaks broke the page with mocking contrast. She remembered with the force of a train rolling down a hill. The clicks and screech of the geiger counter. Were it not for the direness of the situation, she would have delighted in the discovery of five new elements. Perhaps she would have name them after famous people who had been beheaded. Anneboleynium had a nice ring to it. Instead, it was a dream come true in the worst way. People sold their souls for discoveries far less spectacular, but to Jane, to publish was to admit her own demise.

What was fame if she could not live to taste its fruit? How could she explain where it came from? Jane folded up the page and tucked it away back into the bag as if its very presence were burdensome. Countless papers still laid strewn and waiting, but she could not bring herself to continue. So much to think and so little time to move. She ambled over to her closet. Pushing aside the empty plastic hangers, Jane felt along the back wall for a break in the floral wallpaper. When her fingers brushed against the gap, she reached in and pulled out a folder.

The handwritten notes inside were for Erik. There was a vial of blood attached to the sheets. She had intended to sneak it to him when she gave him a copy of the new data. The note instructed him to use the Aether tained fluid to contact Thor, but it seemed childish and silly like a make believe game. Futility undid the intractable mental knot of her desire to reach for him. Her remaining life was like an irrelevant blip on his timescale. Great romance indeed. Prince saves princess only to watch her turn to ash within a blink.

Her longing waxed and waned, driven back by cold, unsympathetic pragmatism. He was responsible for an entire world, and she was just a single woman.

She could not ask that of him.

Jane sniffed back her despair and removed the glass vial. She rested her cheek in her palm as she looked at the red fluid inside. It seemed divinely comical that so much hope could lie in something so destructive. Closing the folder, she opened the tilting desk drawer and fished around for a lighter. The previous tenant had been an avid smoker and there were various colored lighters all around the house. Taking the first one she touched, Jane walked to the window to burn the folder.

Pausing, she stared out beyond the little houses to the horizon. Jane held her breath and waited, half expecting Thor to appear just before the crucial moment. Who was she fooling anyway? The young woman sighed and lit the corner of the pages. Orange flames licked up the paper, consuming its message greedily. Black carbon faded to spent gray ash and broke away from the curling bottom edge. When she could no longer hold the corner, Jane dropped the page to the pebbles outside the window and watched as fire enrobed the shriveling mass.

There goes God, her mind whispered.

She stared out at the sky again and wondered why he wasn't with her.

When the pile burnt itself out, Jane returned to the desk and looked at the little vial of blood again. What a hazard. She threw it unceremoniously into the waste bin and sat back down in front of the daunting papers. All of it needed to be sorted and organized into her notebook. It had been stupid of her to wait—first-year grad student mistake.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Jane looked for anything to defer the prospect. Opening the drawer again, she took out one of the old cartons of cigarettes. The tobacco was old and stale, but she'd never smoked before and doubted she had enough of a refined palate to tell the difference. Putting a cigarette between her lips, she lit the end and inhaled. The acrid smoke burned her lungs and she coughed uncontrollably, doubling over to expel the irritating fumes. When she stopped coughing, she tried again, holding the smoke into her mouth then inhaling. The burnt vapor still burned and tickled, but it was manageable this time.

She'd always maintained that no one should ever smoke, but it didn't seem so clear-cut anymore. In fact, it didn't seem to matter at all. There was no longer time for moral righteousness. So many things, she smiled wryly, so much she had refused to do on principle; yet instead of feeling lifted by the righteous of her decisions, she only felt deprived.

Jane rolled the burning cigarette between her fingers and blew out a cloud of smoke. So this was what everyone talked about. She felt cool already. However, for all the attitude and delight cigarettes promised, it's lack of comfort was almost insulting. Feeling no less empty and hopeless than before, she took a drag from the filter and flickered the ash across the table, too lazy to find an ashtray. Red embers in the burning end glowed, chewing its way through the fibers. Jane tried to think of something other than the uncertainty of the future.

The trail of smoke traveling upwards was mesmerizing, tendrils climbing to the ceiling like growing vines. She vaguely found the gray drift beautiful, but could not feel joy for the experience. Fearful human hearts depended on understanding, expression, and support, and she could not derive any from the dissipating smoke. There was no anticipation left to condense the wooliness of reality into edible pieces.

Once the cigarette burned down to its filter, more stared at and studied than smoked, Jane reached into the carton for another. She lit it and held it between her lips, savoring the taste of bitter old tobacco in the way that young people trying to be sophisticated savored jazz.

For the first time in her life, she didn't know what to do.

Could she fix her illness? Was the risk worth the effort? She could take DTPA. That was what victims of radiation poisoning took to buy time, but she doubted it would work for her. Uranium was not her worry. Could the Aesir help her? _They couldn't help you last time._

She remembered something her father had always said before he died, that no one except herself was looking out for her. But what if she spent all her time chasing the cure only to fail with nothing but wasted time to show. Would it not be better to simply live? Pity yourself or move on. Those were really what the choices boiled down to. She carelessly tapped more ash on the desk. Smoking indoors would surely cost her the deposit on the place.

As Jane drew a breath through her cigarette, the sound of someone's voice broke her from her thoughts.. She jumped to her feet and rushed out into the hall. Nearing the living room, she slowed. Loki was in the same position she'd left him, eyes closed and still asleep. His book had fallen to the ground beside the couch.

"No," he murmured in sleep, stirring slightly.

Jane stopped when she saw him move, suddenly afraid to move closer. Loki's brow furrowed in reaction to the content of his harrowing dream. By proxy, she could feel the ominous nature of the storm inside and gripped the wall to hide behind its corner should he wake and see her. Her cigarette fell to the scratched wooden floor, forgotten.

"I did not fail you. Those were not the terms…" he hissed.

She peered out from the corner and saw him twist, arms tightly stuck to his sides as if bound by unbreakable chain. His jaw was tightly clenched in dread. Jane's eyes traced the distress emanating from his every angle. Her own worries faded as her curiosity pushed all else from her mind.

"I can right it…"

"No—"

Unable to look away, she stood glued to the floor, watching with morbid fascination. There was something almost satisfying about the reversal of their roles—he helpless and trapped while she looked on from above.

Weary of tense hiding, Jane stepped away from the wall and silently leaned into an armchair across the glass coffee table. Quietly, she scooted the chair backward as to not be in danger of Loki's immediate reach. The young woman fished out another cigarette from the crumpled carton and smoked to suppress her desire to fidget and make noise. Hugging her knees to her chest, she curled up in the chair and settled for the long wait.

Eyes still on him, she took in every word and every expression. It was difficult to say how long she watched his restless slumber, but the rapidly vanishing daylight of autumn made it feel like forever. Somewhere along the way, she stopped feeling schadenfreude and began to feel afraid_ for_ him. She wondered what she was doing, feeling sympathy for a being incapable of returning the favor. But in him she found a desperation more compelling and less daunting than her own predicament. She knew she could help him. She was not so sure about herself.

With every word Loki uttered, she understood a little more about why he stayed, why he was willing to remain on Earth. She knew he could easily go back on his word and slip away. But there was a reason he tolerated their bet, and it was certainly not her. He was hiding from someone.

Jane was on her fourth cigarette when Loki's eyes suddenly snapped open. His head jerked around to where she sat, eyes instantly focusing on the cigarette's spot of burning red glow, the only light in the dimming room. She held her breath and waited for him to make the first move. With a twitch of his hand, yellow incandescent light flooded the room. Jane placed a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness. Sometimes she really hated how he could do that.

"You're awake," he stated, surprised by her presence.

"Thanks for the obvious," She replied, still squinting at the light.

"What are you doing?"

"Sitting."

Loki narrowed his eyes as he swung himself upright. "What is in your hand?"

Jane regarded the half-smoked cigarette with a sigh and held it out for him to take. Leaning over the coffee table, he took the small paper roll and inspected it with skepticism. Wordless, she took out the last cigarette of the carton and lit it, demonstrating how to take a drag and breathe out the smoke. He gave her a dubious look.

"Humor me, I'm trying something new," she said softly, tilting her head to rest her temple on her knee.

Keeping his eye on Jane, Loki brought the cigarette to his thin lips and followed her example. As the abrasive smoke entered his lungs, he tried his best to suppress the urge to cough. Although successful, he heaved forward slightly from the involuntary spasm. Jane couldn't help laughing at the absurdity.

"This is possibly the worst—"

"No," she grinned at his struggle, "You're just doing it wrong. You hold it here before you breathe it in." Jane breathed in and pointed to her throat before inhaling and exhaling a cloud of grey. Distrustful, he mimicked her again. When he blew out the smoke easily, Jane smiled, oddly proud of her good instruction. What was the world coming to? _Sitting around smoking with a mad man._

A tense silence fell between them as each of them strategized how to steer the conversation to what was really on their minds. Determined to not give him the edge, Jane leaned forward and asked, "What happened this morning?"

Loki smirked at her audacity and replied, "You were unwell. I brought us back."

"Why don't I remember anything?" She continued her interrogation.

"You were unconscious."

"But how did we—?" Jane thought back to the truck on the lawn. "Wait, you drove?" she exclaimed, nearly falling out of her chair.

"And it was an infuriating experience. Your machines are dreadful, completely unintuitive," he complained, seeing no reason why Jane would be so alarmed. It seemed obvious to him that he could operate her primitive vehicle.

"I don't even know what to say," Jane mumbled, still unable picture it happening. Maybe it was for the better that she didn't know.

"Perhaps some thanks."

She turned to him in disbelief. They could have been in such trouble. It was a miracle that they'd not ended up in a crash. And yet they were fine, a nagging voice in her mind reasoned, he'd gotten her home when she couldn't. He had no obligation to her, it continued, and yet he helped her. Jane sucked on her cigarette in irritation.

"Ok, fine. Thanks." She finally relented in order to stifle the annoying voice.

His lips turned at the corners, an arrogant mien.

Jane forced a sarcastic smile back, flicking her cigarette ash on the coffee table. Feeling thirsty, she moved to make some tea. Earl grey sounded like a nice pairing for chain smoking.

"Tea?"

"Why not."

As she stood, Jane's knees cracked from sitting too long. She could feel Loki's eyes on her as she went through the motions in the kitchen. Suddenly nauseous from the excess of tobacco, she let her cigarette fall into the sink. Perhaps smoking so many in one afternoon was not a good idea—this would not be happening again. While she waited for the kettle boil, Jane leaned easily on the counter and folded her arms.

"What were you dreaming about?" she tossed out casually.

Jane could feel his spine tensing from across the room.

"I don't dream."

"Bullshit," she responded boldly, "I heard you. You talk in your sleep."

His froze, suddenly defensively blank.

"You are mistaken."

As if a sign of his agitation, the water came to a rolling boil, rumbling in the whistling kettle. Jane was careful to put on an oven mitt before pouring the hot water. A plume of vapor rose as the water hit the tea. Lavender filled the room, momentarily brightening the stale smokiness.

Setting down his mug on the glass table, Jane rounded the table to sit beside him on the couch. Once she was seated, she gestured for him to take it. She wrapped her own hands around the hot porcelain of her own mug, not knowing what to do with them while sitting so close to him.

She spoke soft and seriously, intently keeping their eye contact to show her earnestness. "Look, you don't have to hide it from me. We're in this stupid thing together. Whatever you're tangled in, I am too."

He remained tight-lipped.

"Loki, let me help you. I may not be a God, but there are still things I can do. Who are you running from?" she asked tacitly.

"Why would you help me?" He dodged her question with one of his own.

Jane took a sip of her piping hot tea, stalling for time to think of an adequate answer. "Because that's what us_ mortals_ do. Altruism is part of us."

"But why would YOU help ME?" he repeated, calling out her empty ideology.

"Because—I'd wish for someone to do the same."

Loki stopped, unreadable and cold, before he gave her a humorless countenance somewhere between a smile and a grimace. He reached for his tea and stared into the steaming liquid. The shadow of a dark, covered face with menacing rage rippled in the reflective water. When he focused his eyes on the surface, all he could see was his own face.

"You are a fool, Jane."

She steeled herself.

"And you'd be one to refuse."

.


	6. Memory

**Memory**

* * *

**.**

** . **

Jane scratched at the veritable itch on her forearm. Tiny red spots dotted the pale skin on the arm's underside, just before the crook of her elbow. She was highly suspicious that she'd carried back some kind of insect from New Mexico. It'd been two weeks since their return, and something had definitely been mercilessly biting her since. God forbid it was bed bugs. What did people even do if they had those? Letting out a grumpy "hrmph", she proceeded to rise from bed.

She stretched out her stiff limbs and felt a bit dizzy, falling back onto the bed again.

It was already 11am.

First day back, she went to the lab at 8am. Second day, 9am. And so it slid, all the way until she was rolling in around noon. The other researchers at Royal Holloway would greet her with smiling glares as she and Loki walked in, clearly disapproving of these lazy "visiting scholars" they'd been saddled with. But Jane knew they were mostly just envious of the mysteriously never-ending stream of funding she seemed to spend with leisure.

Since returning, Jane was on a relaxed schedule or working half as much as she used to. She just couldn't get enough motivation to stay the late nights. Instead, she went to the movies, toured places she'd only seen in movies, and all with a half-hearted Loki. She reasoned that she was showing him London, the way people on earth enjoyed their lives. He wasn't particularly fond of the idea, but let her drag him along without much resistance. It was as though he somehow perceived it was more for her than him.

Despite her best efforts to pry, he still kept himself distant. All she could get out of him was that he'd failed to deliver his end of a bargain with the creatures that had destroyed New York and they were not pleased. She could only imagine the details he kept to himself.

Jane sighed as she slid between the sheets toward the edge of bed.

They bided their time in pretend casual mundane, but she could sense the coming storm in her very blood, like black ink bleeding into her.

The quiet urgency pushed Jane to desperately focus on building her own portal between the stars. She was beginning to feel the hopelessness of such a daunting task; their limitations in knowledge and materials made it nearly impossible. If only she could get her hands on SHIELD's Tesseract research, but that had proven even more hopeless as they denied and denied. She could feel the despair setting in with each failure. What was even the light at the end even if she did succeed? As much as she tried to hide her melancholy, she could sense that Loki knew. He had an uncanny way of seeing through her, as though he could see the thoughts running through her tangled mind before she even conceived them. It made Jane terribly uneasy.

It also made him an absurdly capable research assistant, or maybe he only seemed to be in comparison to the rather incapable Darcy. She couldn't decide if it was a blessing or a curse. On one hand, it made work so much easier. On the other, she hated the uncontrollable envy she sometimes felt. He could verbally conduct thought experiments without writing a single word. She almost felt stupid trying to keep up with him. The only thing she could do to assuage her feelings of inferiority was to tell herself that it wasn't a fair match. After all, he'd had centuries of practice.

Yes, it was completely unfair.

Languidly climbing over to her dresser, Jane pulled out the first sweater she found, a pilly gray thing, and rushed to get dressed. Today looked to have the potential to be yet another later start if she didn't hurry up. When she straightened the woolly mass on her small frame, she groaned. It had a hole in the sleeve, burned through by some acid from the lab. Maybe it was time to start wearing those lousy lab coats.

Feeling too lethargic to change, she tossed on some jeans and headed out of her room.

Her "assistant" was already sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, the latest of many. Coffee, especially when bitterly black, was the only thing he'd found to his liking and as a result, he drank it nearly non-stop. He gave her a weary look. "I was beginning to think you'd never wake."

"I bet you'd like that," she shot back as she poured herself a cup from the coffee maker. Stopping to stir in generous amounts of cream and sugar, the young woman paused to look out of the kitchen window. Another solemn, grey day.

As Jane made her way to the small, rickety table to join him, she felt the cup grow a little heavy. Slightly light-headed, she grabbed the back of the chair for support. The kitchen was suddenly a bit foggy and difficult to keep in full view. Jane wobbled forward a bit and managed to throw her mug on the table, albeit sloshing half of the burning hot coffee all over the place.

"Oh gosh," she murmured, dismayed at the mess.

"What is the matter?"

He sounded more annoyed than concerned.

"I'm not sure, just feeling faint," she muttered, fighting with gravity, as though only half of her brain's messages could reach her legs. Her ears grew hot, filled with a strange buzzing noise. A pang of fear hit her as she wondered if this was the beginning of the illness. Fading in and out, Jane swayed dizzily, clinging to the chair. She could only half see Loki as he pushed his chair back and stood to help her. The walls seemed to be all blurred together.

"No!" she interjected, holding a shaky hand up. "I'm alright. Just a wave of vertigo. I probably got up too fast. I'm ok, really. You should sit back down."

He ignored her denials and reached around her waist to support her. Jane pushed at his arm weakly. "No, stop, I don't need this. I'm quite fine, thanks."

"And yet being unwell seems to be your specialty," he replied matter-of-factly.

Jane tried to take a step back and folded like a marionette with cut strings. Thankfully, Loki caught her. He placed his other arm under her knees and swung her into the air easily, treating her with care as though she were glass. It was almost effortless to carry her small frame.

"Stop, stop—I can walk," Jane protested, but felt too ill to really mean it.

He took her into her bedroom and set her on the bed gently before quickly turned to leave. In mid-stride, he felt a hand around his wrist pull him back. Surprised by her touch, he glanced back at Jane. She was barely sitting up, pale and brittle. Briefly, he wondered how his brother could have been so inspired by a creature so pathetic.

"Thanks," she whispered, barely audible.

He stopped, eyes locked on hers, stuck in a pause he knew he should be able to fill but somehow could not manage to do so. For some reason, he could not find the words to convey his thoughts with justice. Without speaking, Loki extricated himself from her grasp and turned toward the door. He rubbed his wrist as though it burned.

"Um, do you think you can get my coffee?"

"I am not your servant," he remarked with more disdain than warranted. However, despite his brusque complaint, he reached toward the door and her mug flew from the kitchen into his hand. Jane mouthed a preemptive "thanks". After handing the steaming mug of half-spilt coffee to Jane, he immediately turned to leave.

He walked to the door. Hand already on the knob, he heard her thin, tentative voice behind him again.

"Hey, I know this a bit much to ask, but can you stay?"

Stiffly, he spun around and sighed audibly.

"I mean, you don't have to—if you, I don't know—forget I said anything…" she trailed off, growing more embarrassed with each word. She kicked herself for sounding so needy.

Loki reached for the chair across the room. The wood legs screeched as the chair slide scraped across the floor on its own, settling beside the bed. With a twist of his hand, he rotated the chair to face the bed and stepped toward it. Jane smiled weakly as she saw him approach, relieved to not have to be alone with her worrisome thoughts.

Loki sat down and crossed his arms. Placing his feet on the edge of her box-spring, he leaned back in the chair. For moment, Jane felt guilt for keeping him against his will. Yet there was an insincere edge about the way he displayed his contempt, arms just slightly too relaxed for true displeasure. She allowed herself to imagine that maybe he too desired her company and was only putting on a façade. As soon as it crossed her mind, she berated herself for thinking something so stupid. Of course he had no desires to sit with her.

"Thanks," Jane whispered sheepishly, "again."

Taking a sip of her coffee, she tried to cut the awkwardness. She swallowed a mouthful and raised the mug with a nod as if to tell him she really enjoyed it. He let the silence play uninterrupted, and returned her gesture with a blank look. Air felt thick between them as Jane searched for something to say and Loki searched for a reason to go.

Absently, Jane pushed up her sweater sleeve and scratched at the itch on her arm. The motion seemed to draw his attention, and she quickly pulled the sleeve over and shot him a nervous smile. Bug bites were the last topic she wanted to discuss.

"Have you ever been sick?" She finally broke the tension. Still holding onto her mug, she pushed herself up to sit against the headboard. The copious amounts of sugar seemed to give her some strength and clarity back.

"No, illness is a mortal affliction," he replied arrogantly.

Jane stared out of her window, not sure how to continue the stilted conversation. Contrary to their delightfully effortless discussions about everything and nothing, something was different about this morning. She struggled for words amidst the inexplicable weirdness. Nodding distractedly, she murmured, "Must be nice—to never know it."

The window was a welcome reprieve. The view was not particularly exciting, but she kept her eyes on it anyway. It wasn't the street it she watched, it was the sliver of sky above the buildings. She found herself looking a lot of the time these days. Clutching the mug to warm her hands, Jane kept her eyes away from Loki.

"I suppose," he replied, for lack for something better to say.

She bit her lip. "So, I've always wondered. What is it like to live forever?"

"I—" He furrowed his brow as he grappled for an answer. "I can't say I think of it."

Taking another sip of her coffee, she turned back to him. Her eyes flickered over his hooded eyes, trying for the millionth time to decipher his stoic exterior. "But like, how do you manage to remember such a long time? Does it even seem long to you? Are you the same person you were a thousand years ago? How does that work?"

"Gods have no use for memory."

Great, a non-sequiter.

Jane wrinkled her brow trying to connect the answer to her questions.

"No use for memory," she repeated, turning the phrasing on her tongue to understand the cryptic message. Meaning would not present itself to her. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she finally confessed after some thought.

Loki smirked at her puzzled expression, taking joy in her inability to comprehend.

"Our memory runs together."

She said without thinking, "God, that sound horrible."

He shot her a cold glare and hissed, "Attrition is a price we are happy to pay."

Jane winced.

It took a good few minutes of unsettling silence before she found her voice again.

"So what do you remember?"

"Mostly pointless drivel."

Jane pressed with the serious urgency of an interrogator. "Wait, you forget most of the past?"

"I do not forget," he stated in an offended tone, "You merely lose the mundane, the unimportant. The rest gets stitched together."

"What about people? Do you remember them after they are gone?"

He considered her question seriously, eyes turning to the ceiling as he did, perhaps in an attempt to recall someone from long ago. Jane waited with tense interest and anticipation. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally replied, "It would seem all you recall is a feeling, but not why or for whom."

"Oh." She sounded extremely disappointed.

Jane took a sip of her coffee and let her head fall against the headboard with a soft thud. She rolled her head to turn to the window once more.

Loki traced her line to sight, eyes flickering between her face and the sky outside. There was a disgusting sentimentality about her longing stare. He tightened his jaw as it became clear what she was really fishing for. The thought left a distinctly unpleasant taste in his mouth.

"He's not coming," he spat out, overly sudden and harsh.

She spun back, mouth open to speak but lost for words. "What?"

"Thor. You hope in vain."

Jane felt a lump in her throat swell at his sudden outburst. The unforgiving edge of his words cut like jagged ice. They played to her most insecure demons. "You're wrong. He will; he promised," she insisted fiercely.

"Yes, he will abandon his realm in its hour of need for a mortal woman," he stated, voice dripping with venomous sarcasm.

"But we—"

"What? You're different?" he cut in, "You're some marvelous story that epitomizes romance?"

"That's not what I said."

The dark-haired man smirked. "I know my brother. He has a habit of giving what he does not possess. By the time he remembers you, you will have grown long past youth. Do you believe he will desire you when you are no longer beautiful? When you reek of weariness and death?"

Caught by the unforgiving coldness of his tone, her heart raced with sickness. Her mind knew that he was provoking her, but it did not feel any less real. Perhaps Thor really did not think of her in the same way that she constantly thought of him. Perhaps it was more fantasy than real and he had indeed put her in some dusty corner of his mind until more leisurely days. Frail and upset, Jane felt her eyes grow hot and blinked to keep them dry. She felt a sort of twisting deep within her core, a sensation so heavy and so embedded it sucked her organs inwards.

"No, I believe in him," she declared softly, eyes downcast.

"Then you shall be bitterly disappointed. He has another and next to her, you are but a leaf next to a rose," he scoffed at her blind devotion.

"You lie. That isn't true." Her voice creaked as though she were pleading.

"But it isn't it? Do not tell me you have truly deluded yourself. I had not thought you so simple," he jeered, twisting the pain deeper with schadenfreudian satisfaction.

"No…"

"You're hope is pathetic."

Jane's knuckles were white from squeezing her coffee mug too tightly. Her eyes watered and her shoulders shook slightly, but she kept as it in as much as possible. He didn't deserve the luxury of making her cry.

"Get. out." She enunciated each word with slow deliberation.

"And here I thought you found me charming—"

His sarcasm only served to make her angry.

"Get out!" she cried, slamming her mug down on the bedside table and stumbling out of bed to force him from his chair.

"So contrary, Jane," he mocked, delighting in her fury, "Why, mere minutes ago, you so emphatically requested-ah, what was it? Can you stay?"

Jane threw her weight forward to push in him out of his seat. Before her hands could even make contact with his chest, she found herself suspended in midair, immobilized by an invisible force. It felt like being stuck in thick gelatin, aware of the pounding of her heart and quivering of her fingertips, but unable to move at all. She could feel his control snaking through her mind. It was like a cold fluid running under her skin.

"You dare strike me?" he said, amused by her audacity. Jane felt her body sliding back onto the bed with a mind of its own. Loki stood over her, hands in the air rearranging her limbs like a marionette. Her arms floated to rest by her side. Had she not been so angry, she might have felt fear, but instead, she gritted her teeth and fought futilely. But there was no way for her to break his spell.

When satisfied with her stillness, he smiled down at his handiwork. Jane took deep breaths and closed her eyes to calm herself. She was being a reactionary idiot. Fighting was hardly ever the wisest thing to do. Thinking long and hard, she tried to embrace his power, accepting the way it set up walls between her mind and body. A sudden jolt of foreign feeling flooded her feeling, causing an involuntary shiver.

Time stretched from seconds into minutes into hours as she struggled to decode the message. Her mind raced. Finally, like a difficult pill swallowed, she knew. She knew what she could say to him.

It seemed to take forever to gather the courage to speak the words.

"You know, I get it," Jane finally said, staring him straight in the eye. "This is what you do because it's the only way you know how to be. I feel sad for you. It must be so hollow and unsatisfying to only derive joy at the expense of others."

Eyes narrowing, he dared her to continue.

And so she did.

"You must be so alone, your paranoia consuming y—"

"What do you know?" he challenged her bitterly, reacting so fast that she knew she'd hit a nerve. Leaning down to intimidate her, he placed a hand on either side of her head to be more imposing. She could sense the mattress sink with the weight. His long dark hair fell forward. Jane could almost feel it brush her face.

Concentrating on reeling back his emotion, his hold on her slipped, and Jane felt her arms responding again. Her hand shot up to grasp his arm.

"I know that you're capable of more. You're better than this."

Loki flinched, jerking his arm away and recoiling. He stumbled an unintended step back, shocked from the oddly invasive sensation. Spell broken, Jane stirred, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed easily. Energized by gaining control again, she stood up without thought of the illness which had followed her so closely. The room was unusually clear, as though she were watching from all around, able to see everything from all angles.

His unexpected level of discomfort only made her feel braver.

"You don't have to push me away."

He took another step back.

Jane boldly moved forward to close the distance between them.

"And I know you feel it too."

He stood frozen to the ground, paralyzed by the electricity of her close gaze.

The sound of his own heart beating in his head was deafening.

.


	7. Seclusion

**Seclusion**

* * *

.

.

The buzzer rang.

Time seemed to flow backwards.

It rang again.

She could hardly comprehend what was happening.

The electronic buzz skipped with a particular brand of annoyed insistence. Zzzzz, the intercom broadcasted. The visitor pushed the button again and again, convinced she was home and purposefully ignoring the buzzer.

Loki turned to the disruptive sound. As the she lost his attention, Jane felt her courage recede. She suddenly felt remarkably nervous, as though she'd said all the wrong things. She's done it all wrong. It had felt right, but then again, when had anything that felt correct ever turn out to be for the best? Frozen by her own anxieties, twisting the rough ends of her sweater sleeve was about all she could manage to do.

It was too far. She'd gone too far.

The buzzer rang again.

"I better get that," she said timidly, looking at the floor to avoid him. Without delay, she exited the room, thankful for a reason to leave him.

Not even bothering with the intercom, she carelessly unlocked the building door. Her mind was too busy to feel anything at the idea of a stranger. Leaning against the wall next to the door, Jane closed her eyes to wait for the visitor to climb the four flights of stairs. She tried to keep her mind from Loki but their strange altercation kept swimming to the surface. It was almost as if they'd reached a cliff's edge and he was only thing to look at aside from the abyss below.

She could still feel his eyes staring through her. _Stop_, she told herself.

"You're so very like him."

God, she could even hear him. The coldness was so like Loki that Jane felt shock her imagination could draw up something utterly real.

"Stop," she told herself aloud.

"I prefer not to." Spite and malice turned simple words into cutting daggers.

Jane's eyes snapped open to see Loki standing a distance away in the sitting room. He twisted his lips in scorn, hateful and mocking. Unsettled, she shivered involuntarily.

"It's so obvious. You are both so enamored with your own righteousness," he continued, "Imbued with such unimaginative trust in the fabrications you so fondly call morals. You understand nothing, Jane Foster. You are all just infants holding hands. Let me impress upon you that I am the only one who is truly awake here."

"You're upset." She seemed to shrink into the wall with each word.

He gave a disparaging half-smile. "How lovely of you to take note."

"That's not—"

An impatient knock interrupted her, causing her to jump a bit at the unexpected sound. She stopped, unsure of whether opening the door was a good idea at the moment.

"Open it."

"I don't think that's—"

"Open it!" Loki commanded.

"No."

He reached out with his hand and made a turning motion. Jane gasped as she heard the lock click open. Dashing sideways to block the door, she placed her hand on the knob to stop it from turning. But she was too late, and the door had already cracked open. There was no pretending to whoever was outside that she could not come to the door.

Opening the door just enough to show her face, she peered out into the stairwell.

"Oh, hi Erik." Her voice trembled as she tried to smile through her terror. "Now's not a great time."

Jane tried to close the door, but the elderly man placed a hand on the other side to stop her efforts. He did not look amused. Mouthing a "please", she tried to close the door again. He shot her an irate glare that deepened the lines in his brow. Jane pleaded with him silently to no avail. Erik threw the door open with his weight so forcefully that she barely had time to step aside.

Her heart sunk.

Erik barged into her flat, slamming the door behind him. "What is the matter with you, Jane?" he bellowed.

"Erik, really," Jane said softly, trying to calm him down.

"Do not give me another cryptic message. You don't answer your phone. You don't answer your emails. And you dodge your grant meetings without a word of apology? Are you deliberately trying to ruin your career?" Erik shouted, waving and pointing wildly in every direction. The admonishments made her stare at the floor like a child.

"Erik, please. Let's talk another time." Jane put a hand on his arm to try and usher him out, away from the danger.

"No, Jane," he said sternly, "We need to talk—"

The man's gaze drifted to the sitting room and he stopped upon seeing someone else in the room. Jane's stomach churned as she followed his line of sight. But it was not Loki standing there. Instead, he was a middle-aged man with a mop of sandy hair and tan skin that only served to make his green eyes even more striking.

"And who the hell is this?" Erik pointed to the stranger, clearly infuriated by the idea of a strange man in her home.

"I'm…He's…" Jane stammered, too overwhelmed to string together a proper answer.

"Leaving," Loki finished for her. As he passed Erik by the door, he gave the older man a cruel smile. Erik wheezed a frightened breath and involuntarily stepped out of the way, stunned by a feeling of alarming dejavu.

Jane put her hand over the line between the door and its frame. "Don't go," she said, afraid of what might happen should she let him walk out. New York again?

Loki leaned down and hissed into her ear, "This just isn't fun anymore. Don't take it personally, Jane. Wait, but perhaps you should."

"Please, don't go." She placed her other hand on his arm.

He brushed her off with disgust.

"Please. I'm not sure about what I've done, but I'm sorry," she pleaded, willing to say anything.

He gave a humorless laugh. "You're a terrible liar."

Knocking her hand out the doorway, he opened the door harshly. In one swift motion, Loki stepped through the threshold and closed it behind him. Once in the stairway, he moved slowly and deliberately, knowing she would not chase after him with Erik in her house.

Jane let out a shaky breath. Part of her mind screamed to go after him and the other part simply hummed that she was powerless to change anything. She gave Erik a worried look. It was all so wrong.

"Jane," her mentor admonished, "This is all about some bloke?"

"No, it isn't," she replied weakly.

"Well that's clearly what I just saw. You can't throw away your life like this. First it's Thor, and then it's this fellow. And I can just tell he's trouble from a glance. You have got to get your priorities straight, Jane," he lectured her, fully fitting the stereotype of a crotchety old British man as he pulled his cardigan down in the front indignantly.

"It's not about him," Jane mumbled to herself. But wasn't it? She was still debating whether to go or stay.

"Oh Janey, don't be this way." Erik softened his tone as he saw her vulnerability. He furrowed his brow in concern. "You've got to listen to me. I was young once too. I know it feels like the end of the world if someone you like walks out. But it isn't. You'll live. The world keeps on moving."

She looked at Erik with watery eyes. Except none of what he said was true. Not for her, anyway.

"Come now, there are more important things in life." He placed a gentle, but firm hand around her shoulder and guided her to the couch.

Jane allowed herself to be pushed along silently. As she sat down on the sofa, she couldn't help but feel the room spin as she thought of Loki's absence. It was a tense sort of co-existence, but this was the first time in weeks that he was really gone.

"Everything is a mess. I don't know where I went wrong," she looked at him with expectation, as if he held all the answers.

The old man sighed and swayed his head back and forth, scratching at his thinning hair as he tried to find a way to reassure her. He had meant to lead their conversation toward something less uncomfortable. Relationships and gossip were simply not his forte. Where was Darci when you need her most?

"Well, love, why don't you tell me what happened," he finally said with a nervous smile and nod. Taking Jane's hand, he patted it warmly.

Jane stared at the floor. "I just tried to help him. But he just wouldn't let me in. I just don't understand, Erik—it feels like I did all the right things. I was kind, I was patient. I even told him that I believed the best in him and that he was capable of better."

"Well," Erik snorted at the last part, "That's where you went wrong."

"What?"

"You can't change people, Jane. It's an insult to try."

Jane protested, "But I didn't. I only tried to give everything I could."

"No, Jane. You gave what you wanted to receive, which was likely not what he needed," he explained simply, certain with a type of wry disappointment that only came from hard-earned wisdom.

"What I needed…" she trailed off. It was too late now, anyway. Upon seeing her lips quiver, Erik enveloped her in a comforting embrace.

"Don't feel bad, you'll forget soon enough. Plenty of eligible bachelors around."

He patted her on the back. Instead of calming her, his retort only made her feel worse.

"Erik, I don't want to talk about this anymore," she moaned.

"Alright then," he said, relieved, "Let's talk about some more important business. I've got to warn you that SHIELD is quite displeased with you. They'll be calling on you soon, and not for a pleasant afternoon chat."

"But I don't want to talk about them either. I hate those stupid, stuffy agents. They're just such sheep with their constant pressure for reports and useless meetings. I just wish we could go back to way everything was before," she said into his shoulder, her face buried in his scratchy sweater like it was the only safe thing the world.

"There, there. Bureaucracy is like growing up. It's just bound to get you sometime. If it wasn't this, it would have been the university tenure track."

Jane took a deep breath as he pulled away. She desperately wanted to tell him everything, but her fought the urge to divulge the mess. Erik didn't need to know the ugliness of it all. He'd suffered enough for her.

"I'm fine," she lied, "What do they want from me?"

Erik tensed at the request. He fidgeted nervously and grumbled inaudibly. "Now, I know this will come as terrible news, but you stay calm. They want you to move to New York and work in their facility. They seem to think it would be mutually beneficial if you were closer. Your lack of respect for their authority has not gone unnoticed."

Jane bristled at the news. "But I can't do that. They'll be looking over my shoulder for everything I do. Isn't there anything you can say? They trust you," she objected with disbelief.

"This isn't a choice, Jane. They're not going to be kind. You know how draconian they are."

Jane stood up sharply. "And what if I refuse?"

"Jane..."

She shook her head.

"Come on, love."

"What if I refuse?"

"Be smart now. They're not nice people to irritate. You've seen what they're capable of. This doesn't have to a total loss. Darci is there finishing school. I'm sure she'll be delighted to assist you again," Erik reached out in an attempt to get her to sit back down.

"Stop beating round the bush, Erik. What will happen if I refuse?" she pressed again.

He mumbled non-sentence syllables and waved his hands around, stalling her. When Jane insisted again, he broke down and shrugged, as if it to demonstrate his own feelings of futility. "They'll stop your funding and confiscate your work. I hesitate to think what they are capable of."

Jane swallowed, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in. But what would it matter? It wasn't like she needed those things for long. Her time wasn't worth the confinement. She would rather work as a lowly technician for the university than give up on principle. If the Aether didn't kill her, Loki would, it was only a matter of time. She hadn't managed to fix either problem.

"You can tell them to go shove it because I'm not going anywhere," she declared.

Take aback by her callous tone, Erik gasped, "Jane!"

"That's my decision."

"Don't be rash! This is serious," he counseled.

Jane shook her head and pursed her lips in disapproval.

"I've decided."

"Jane," he warned.

"No!"

.

.

The autumn air was crisp and slightly biting as Loki stepped out onto the sidewalk. The clarity of the air seemed suppress a portion of his internal turmoil. He turned a piece of metal in his hand over and over, feeling each of its grooves and lines, memorizing their patterns with his fingertips. Holding the key by the stem, he jabbed into the dark soil of a topiary pot by the front steps as he passed by. He had no use for it anymore.

After a few steps, he lingered and looked back to the pot.

Perhaps it would be useful to keep. He turned back and retrieved the key, blowing the dirt off before depositing in his pocket. Continuing down the block, Loki savored the feeling of being alone. He didn't know where he would go, but he resolved to simply walk in this one direction until he felt differently. His mind was far too sick with thought to care for much. It didn't matter the destination, only that he could go as far as his own two feet could carry him.

Yellowing shrubbery shook as a gust of wind blew by. He was reminded momentarily of the golden flowers Frigga had filled the palace with every hundred years. They were coming up on another century. Briefly, he wondered if the court would continue now that she was gone and Odin was locked in sleep.

Unlikely. He doubted they were capable of sentimentality.

He reached a cross street and strolled into the pavement without regard to traffic rules. An oncoming cyclist cursed at him to get out of the road. With a careless wave of his arm, he pushed the bike over, sending the cyclist tumbling to the ground.

Loki laughed at the man's disoriented struggle to get back up. Mortals were so breakable.

Whenever he reached the other side of the street, he heard the man grumble a disgruntled, "Damn goths" as he got back on his bike.

Raising an eyebrow, Loki wondered if what that was all about. Normally, he would have asked Jane if he should take it as a compliment. He could almost hear her musical laughter. It was quickly replaced by the intense distress in the look she'd given him as he walked away. Her dark eyes wide and fearful, burdened with stark panic.

_I know you feel the same. _

The same phrase haunted him despite his best efforts to forget. He couldn't even remember the rest of what she'd said. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and shoved the image away. When it wouldn't fade, he lashed out angrily, breaking all ground floor the windows by him. The shattering glass and subsequent screeches of alarm from the residents seemed to make him feel better.

Calmly continuing forward, he began to think of his next steps. This little detour, what would Jane have called it? A bender? Whatever it was, it was over. His cynicism broke though the stupidly idyllic illusion of Midgard.

He couldn't keep running forever.

.

.

Jane sat still watching the sky darken, holding an empty coffee mug and feeling the nothingness in the house. Erik had long left and taken all the life in the room with him. Even the ferns in the window drooped languidly. She'd gone out earlier and bought some cigarettes in an attempt to pick up the habit, but the pack was still full and untouched on the coffee table. Something about the smell of tobacco and sensation taking out a cigarette was too reminiscent.

And so she placed the carton on the glass, unable to bring herself to smoke any of it. Jane sat waiting, half expecting the door to unlock and Loki to walk in any minute. Her iPod had played through Adele's album twice now.

Did she even want him to return?

As if the song's end were a cue, she rose to refill the mug with stale, old coffee. No matter how much she drank, she couldn't seem to stay alert. With a little laugh, she thought this must be how he felt. As she poured the lukewarm brown liquid, she couldn't help but stare at all of the broken appliances littered across the kitchen counters. All the wires a bolts circuit parts seemed to stare back at her with a life of their own.

The toaster had been the first victim, taken apart because he'd been curious at how the toast pops up. Then the waffle iron, then the breadmaker, then food processor. She'd put her foot down when it came to the microwave. He merely took apart the humidifier instead. All the wires and metal bowels lay strewn about for he never felt the desire to put them back together after he understood the insides. She let them pile up in hopes the increasing piles would discourage him from disassembling yet another appliance.

Jane picked up a metal plate and threw it in the trash. Maybe she ought to clean up this mess.

A muffled footstep echoed from the stairwell. Ears straining to hear more, she dashed to the door. Someone was coming up the stairs. Jane flung the door open, and ran into the carpeted stairwell. She leaned against the railing and looked down. To her disappointment, it was only the old woman who lived diagonally across on the floor below.

Shuffling back into her own flat dejectedly, she sighed. Inside, she picked up her mug and walked to the bedrooms. She past her own room and stood before his. Hesitantly, she opened the door and flipped on the light.

Her chest swam as she looked into the room.

Nothing left.

He wasn't coming back.

There was nothing in the room except the furniture. The wardrobe door was open, displaying its empty hangers. There were no shoes, no clothes, nothing. The usually cluttered desk was bare save for an old, unconnected landline phone. Jane could have sworn he'd taken that apart too. She tread toward the desk and ran her fingers over the phone. He'd put it back together with the numbers and symbols in the wrong places. She almost laughed, but the bitterness of the situation prevented the sound from emerging.

Jane thought he must have come back while she was out. There'd never been much to begin with, but she wondered where it all went. It seemed absurd for him to keep anything; she just didn't peg him for the material type. He'd done this only to send her a message.

Sitting down on the bed, she stared at the bare walls and emptiness. They were all in trouble. An angry God was out roaming the earth. And it was her fault.

He wasn't coming back.

Jane reached into her pocket and took out her phone. Her hand shook slightly as she flipped through her contacts, but she couldn't understand why. She felt unusually calm.

"Hi Erik," she breathed into the phone, "You're right. I change my mind. I'm going to go to New York."

A flood of best wishes and compliments on her good judgment came through the ear piece. She waited for him to finish.

"But I need something from them in return," Jane revealed.

Silence on the line.

"They must tell Thor I need to see him."

.


	8. Convalescence

**Convalescence**

* * *

.

.

Stepping off the airport escalator, Jane dragged her too-heavy luggage behind her. The suitcase wheels skidded against the uneven ridges of the escalator steps, wobbling into the metal railing of the exit path as she tugged it around a corner. Other travelers rushed past her left and right as they headed toward the crowd of eager people standing behind railings waiting to pick up their loved ones and business clients. She surveyed their bright eager faces, looking out for someone who looked they might work for SHIELD.

Jane scanned the various signs and pieces of paper for her name. No one in the front row. She rolled slowly through the arrival line, past the people vigilantly awaiting for someone other than her. When the people thinned to just a few, she began to worry that maybe no one was here to pick her up. Well, she thought, it wasn't the biggest deal, not like she'd never been to New York City before.

As she inched around the crowd, still searching for her host, Jane saw a lanky young man with copper-colored hair in an ill-fitting at the outer edge of the crowd engrossed in reading something on his phone. The over-sized sleeves of the jacket made him look as though he were borrowing his father's office clothes. Jane rolled her eyes as she saw a sign with SHIELD's logo in the corner dangling from his hand. "John Foster" was typed in neat arial font.

"Excuse me," she prodded his arm.

The young man turned his eyes to her, looking annoyed that a small woman was interrupting his fascinating phone screen. "Um, can I help you?" he said flippantly, as though she were doing him a great disservice.

"Yes, you can," Jane returned with an equally offended tone, "You have a typo on your sign. I'm _Jane_ Foster. I believe you're waiting for me." She pointed to his sign.

The young man-boy, she corrected now that she'd seen him up close, jumped and clumsily shoved his phone into his pocket before extending a hand. His pale skin was practically translucent contrasted against his glossy black suit.

"Sorry, _Miss_ Foster. I, um, didn't get too much information on this assignment. It's great to meet you. I'm agent Peter-I mean Peter Simon. I'm agent Simon."

God, this was who they sent her? An incompetent kid with two first names. Jane shook his hand, grimacing at the unexpected cold dampness of his weak handshake. Agent Simon grinned nervously, hanging onto her hand for an awkwardly long time. The way his ears wiggled and his round face puffed up when he smiled only seemed to add to his ridiculousness and youth.

"It's Dr. Foster," she corrected, quickly pulling away and inconspicuously wiping her hand on her coat.

"Ok doc, I'm supposed to take you to..." He dug around in the inside pocket of his jacket for a crumpled piece of paper. "It says I'm to take you to your living arrangement and then to the office for debrief. Alright, that's what we are going to do." Typing the address into his phone, he scrutinized the route with obvious hesitation. Without warning, he turned and began to walk, his wingtip shoes clacking loudly. Jane gave a puzzled look before concluding that she was to follow.

They walked through the fluorescent light halls and paths into the airport garage. Jane struggled to keep up as his outpaced her with longer legs. It occurred to her that it was rather rude that the young man hadn't offered to help her with her luggage. Agent Simon suddenly stopped and looked around. Jane almost ran into him.

"Why are we stopping?" Jane asked, flustered by the entire experience. Travel in general was an annoying experience for her.

"I forgot where the car is," he explained simply, ducking around like a bad dancer. A few rows over, he yelled for Jane to join. Letting out a long breath, she made her way over with deliberate slowness. The red-haired boy was struggling to unlock an old, boxy, gray Toyota Corolla. It had clearly seen better days. The edges of the car's frame where metal ended and joined were rusted and chipping. Jane looked at the car incredulously.

"This is what we're driving in?" She had the sinking feeling it wouldn't even start.

"Dr. Foster, I promise 110% this is an awesome ride. They wouldn't give me a standard black car. Something about the sequester and too much insurance and stuff. But whatever, this thing's great. He's a sweet ride, you know japanese cars, they practically run forever." Agent Simon shrugged and bent down to pop the trunk.

The back of the car creaked open.

"He?" Jane raised an eyebrow. "I thought cars were always female."

Jane rolled her luggage to the trunk hesitantly. The boy rushed over to help Jane lift the heavy suitcase into the cramped trump. He heaved with an ungraceful grunt and threw her belongings into the space carelessly. Slapping the trunk closed before Jane could even protest, he replied, "Oh yeah, but I named it Gandalf so I like to think of it as a he."

Agent Simon dusted his hands on his pants, oblivious of his fingers leaving unsightly gray streaks on the black fabric. Shaking her head to herself, Jane walked over to the passenger side and folded herself into the car. They were punishing her, she was sure of it. Her handler entered the driver's side in a bizarre series of too long limbs bending awkwardly. It was rather like watching a newborn giraffe trying to lay down.

"How old are you anyway?" She couldn't resist asking.

"22," He announced proudly with a toothy grin before typing something into this phone.

"So this is like, your first job."

The boy looked up and blinked for a second, brain processing her words on delay. "Nah, I've totally done an internship. I mean, this wasn't my first choice, but my uncle's the director of communications at SHIELD so I thought I'd do him a solid and try this thing out for a bit."

"To try it out?" She sounded the syllables slowly, having never thought of working for the government as something one 'tried out.'

"Like, maybe I can go work for the CIA or something next. I do have cat like reflexes."

"Maybe," Jane mumbled, hoping that day would never come. National security certainly did not need another idiot. They slowly backed out of the narrow parking space and sputtered toward the toll booths. A white car at the corner of the garage pulled in from the opposite direction. Agent Simon floored the pedal and they zoomed forward into the exit lane, cutting off the other driver from entering.

"Thou shall not pass!" he boomed with a pretend english accent, shaking his fist at the other car.

Jane stared at him.

"You know, cause we're driving Gandalf," he explained with a goofy, self-satisfied grin, causing Jane to roll her eyes and sigh.

God help us all, she thought.

.

.

The members of the British parliament clamored around, loudly interrupting each other and hotly debating some menial drivel Loki neither understood nor cared to learn about. He sat in one of the back rows, slouching on the red leather chair beside an old woman who constantly adjusted her white hair which stood solidly like a dome on top of her head.

"My lords, I am deeply concern…" the speaker droned on despite the heckling of the audience. He took off his wire-frame glasses and wiped anxious sweat from his forehead. His graying brown hair was collapsing on his head, intensifying his ragged look.

Loki found it engaging in theory but boring in practice.

He'd taken to following the queen at first, but was terribly disappointed after seeing the frail old lady do nothing but drink tea and choose new curtains for the royal palace. She was not a real queen, not like his mother. And so he'd followed the trail of power to where the real rulers were, to the parliament, which itself was also rather disappointing.

The only things which greatly amused Loki about the House of Lords was the absurdly cramped arrange of the room and the stupidity of being continuously given documents but having no tables or desks of which to write upon. It seemed utterly entertaining to him that such "dignified" proceedings were taking place in such an undignified manner. He also greatly enjoyed the fact that a suit and demanding attitude were all it took to enter.

"Syria is symbol, my lords..."

Another round of heckling ensued, drowning out the speaker. The woman next to Loki quietly huffed with righteous anger. Surveying the room, Loki noticed many others like her, old men tugging at their tie-knots, verging on true protest but too polite to act. He rolled his eyes at them. It was time to make things more interesting. He cast an image of himself behind the haggard speaker.

"We must go to war," he whispered into the politician's ear.

"We must go to war!" The man repeated.

The room exploded, ladies and lords all rising and screeching their protests.

He smirked, this was much better. Loki stood up and whispered to the woman beside him, "Kill him. He rather deserves it, I'd say."

Without a thought, the old, portly woman climbed over the seats, knocking several gentlemen down and barreled toward the center of the room. She plowed through parliament possessed, growing increasingly belligerent as the other politicians tried to hold her back. Utter chaos overtook the room as she found her target and threw herself at him, clawing at his throat with her perfectly manicured nails.

Loki laughed, calmly watching the escalating disarray from his elevated seat.

Men with earpieces and guns in their hands rushed in from the grand entrances, complicating the mass hysteria further. He laughed at the screeches and shouts. It was amusing.

And then it was no longer so. He felt his face tire of his grin as though it were made of resistant clay. No one could see him even without his illusions. As he watched the people clustered around the violence of the center, unaware of the source of such mayhem, he felt his glee supplanted by pity for their fear and suffering.

The scene was revolting.

His disgust was foreign and cryptic, an integral flaw he could not parse in his mind. His head pounding with the oddity of the feeling. It was as though his being had been replaced in the night and this new body and soul was utterly different. He found no joy in the chaos; he longed for more. Was this some mortal affliction that had infected him? He willed for anything more, even _her_ admonishment.

He stomped out of the chamber, running from his own uncertain emotion. Loki grabbed the corner of an ornate hallway painting of the former prime minister, crushing its gilded frame like paper. The metal shards cut into his hand, but he could not feel any pain. Loki glared at his hands.

A guard in the hall ran toward him, gun drawn and screaming unintelligible threats. Raising a hand, he called to the Gungnir. It fly to him, crashing through one of the windows. Loki raised Odin's staff high above his head. With a crack, flames engulfed the hall. Loud alarms whirled. He didn't care if the Other could sense him or not.

He was sick of this place.

In life there are a few places, or maybe only one place, where something of substance has happened. And then there are the other places, which are just other places. Without Jane, London had become one of these.

Instructing the Gungnir to rise, Loki allowed it to pull him out to the open air, falling up.

Toward the one place on earth where something had happened.

.

.

Jane looked at Agent Simon as he grooved to a song in his own head, unperturbed by the Manhattan traffic which would have driven anyone else's blood pressure through the roof. He was so young in her eyes, bobbing left and right to some tune she'd likely never heard before. She briefly wished she had such blissful ambivalence, grown up like a grape vine, ignorant to the world he wrapped around.

"Hey Agent Simon."

"Huh?" the young man leaned over, shaken out of his musical swaying. "Oh by the way, can you just call me Pete? The Agent Simon thing is kind of weirding me out."

"Ok, Pete." It was certainly more fitting.

He gave her big thumbs up. "So, Dr. Foster, what's up?"

"Just Jane is fine." She supposed it was only fair. But she'd rather enjoyed the sound of "Dr." in front of her name.

"Alright, Jane! Bump it!" Pete shoved his fist her way. Jane weakly tapped her knuckles against his, feeling awkward and far too old for such gestures. With a resounding "Yeah!", Pete opened his fist and wiggled his fingers to simulate sparks. A forced smile settled on Jane's face as she felt increasingly out of place.

"So I have a question—" she began.

"Shoot!" he interrupted her, turning away to survey the road before changing lanes.

"Yes," Jane continued, slight irritation creeping into her voice. "So, Pete, philosophical question. What would you do if you knew you were going to die, but you aren't sure when it'll happen? Would you try to figure it out and fix it? Would you just resign yourself and wait for it?"

Pete wrinkled his brow in thought. His freckled cheeks puffed up as he held his breath, turning the idea over and over in his head. By the sheer interval of time he took to think about the question, it seemed he was knitting together some profound answer. Finally, he turned to Jane at a stop light, looking bewildered, and uttered, "I don't get it."

Jane sighed and explained, "Like, it could in a year, but it could also be really far away. You don't know when it'll happen." She was beginning to regret asking.

"Okay…" he replied slowly, "I get that part."

"So what don't you get?" She asked in exasperation. It was a simple question, after all.

"How is it different than like, our business now?"

"What?" It was her turn to not understand.

"Yeah, like we could all die tomorrow in a freak accident or live until we're wicked old. How is what you asked different than just being alive?" He returned with genuine confusion.

"I—" Jane paused, "Forget it. I phrased it wrong. Just forget it; it was stupid anyway." She waved her as though to bat the idea itself away.

Pete uttered a small, unconvinced, "whatever man" then shrugged and concentrated on driving. Turning to the window, Jane tried to focus on the passing neighborhood and not the unsettling drifting feeling that was in her stomach. _How was it different? _It most definitely was, she reasoned, there was an urgency that stemmed from knowing something inside of her could flare any moment. But then again, was it, really? The possibility of life threatening cancer was inside of each and every one of them. Her inner devil's advocate cackled.

The car pulled into the smaller one-way streets of a more residential area. Trash piled high on the grimy sidewalks and the buildings were growing gradually more and more run down. Dingy neon-signed convenience stores dominated the alley edges. A crowd of kids loitering and smoking on the street corner all jeered as they drove past. Jane felt the distinctly uncomfortable need to keep her finger on the door's lock, then felt rather racist about the instinct. She kept her hands in her lap.

"Pete, where are we?" Jane asked, growing concerned about the surroundings they drove through.

"It's Washington Heights. We have an apartment setup for you here. I picked it out myself. I think you'll like it, it's pretty sweet." The boy gave her a confident heads up and tapped the steering wheel with his fingers to some new silent song.

Jane gave an alarmed look. "Isn't this the—" she searched for a more politically correct word than 'ghetto' or 'hood'. "Isn't it a bit unsafe there?"

"Oh no, uber secure, fourth safest place on Manhattan," Pete assured, "I mean, I did think you were going to be a bro, but you know…you'll be fine. You look like you uh—could be tough. Plus, it's like, avant garde live out here."

She glared. Like there were that many places in Manhattan for fourth to mean much. They _were most certainly _punishing her. The suits were probably hoping she'll get mugged and terrorized. Jane clutched her purse in silent anger. They would not get the best of her. She would live here happily and shove it in their faces. Stupid politics would not hold her back. Yes, she would make it avant garde or something.

They pulled over in front of an old brick row house with chipping green paint. There were thick metal bars on all the ground floor windows. Pete rushed out to open the passenger side door in an unexpected display of chivalry. Jane stepped out gingerly, careful to cross the gap between the car and the sidewalk edge which had peeled away from the sinking street. Her handler rushed to the trunk, his movements jerky and unnatural as though he were not used to owning his body. He heaved out the giant suitcase with a grunt and dumped it on the sidewalk.

Looking up at the rundown building, she saw a shadowy face staring down. A feeling of dread overtook Jane despite her mental pep talk to herself. It wasn't scary, this wasn't really the hood. It was just vintage housing. She still felt so very vulnerable and afraid. It was stupid, she knew, the people here had no reason to be anything but kind to her, but she just couldn't shake the fear.

It must have shown because Pete rubbed his red hair nervously and stuttered, "Let's uh, go, um...yeah, you know, inside."

He dug out a pair of keys from his pocket and jiggled one of them into the front gate. After some trial, the wrought metal door swung open to the small lobby inside. The tiny 1970's green and white hexagon floor tile was cracked and missing in several places, causing her suitcase to thunk loudly every few steps. Holding up a tiny key, Pete pointed to a row of metal boxes on the wall.

"This one's for the mail."

They continue down the dimly lit hall to a black door with a circular window on the door. It reminded Jane of the doors on ships, sticky with layers of paint. Behind it was the elevator, a tiny box built as an afterthought. They barely fit with the suitcase between them.

"Third floor." Pete pushed a glass button with a crooked '3' behind it. "Laundry's in the basement," he explained further, "It's communal, I think it takes quarters."

"Thanks," Jane replied, for lack of something better to say.

The elevator reached the third floor and they spilled out into the cramped, carpeted hall. A rusty old chandelier hung on the ceiling without any light bulbs, lending the impression the building may have once been beautiful long ago. Flickering wall sconces buzzed, casting low light through the hall.

"This way!"

Pete rolled her suitcase to the left and stopped at one of the black doors. It too was greasy and tacky with years of paint. A tarnished and speckled metal '3B' was tacked on the door below a small peephole. Flashing her the key to show her which one it was before he unlocked the deadbolt, he gave her one last smile before he opened the door. Beaconing her excitedly, Pete dragged the luggage into the apartment without delay. Jane followed with a wry smile.

"Ta da! Isn't it great? Comes with everything!"

The inside of the apartment reminded her of her first apartment, where the walls were bleach white and the wooden floors newly waxed but the place never quite felt clean. Jane walked around the small living room and surveyed its circle of faded, flowery furniture and mismatched tables. She brushed her fingers over the gray blinds, causing a plume of dust to fall from cracking plastic. Moving away from the window, she took a seat in one of the ornate old tall chairs. Jane nodded to herself. She thought she'd feel homesick or some sort of longing but she felt nothing. This dusty apartment incited only a mild hum of disinterest.

Pete rolled her suitcase to a door across the room and propped open the door. "And this is your bedroom in here. Has a closet and a wardrobe. I thought a one bedroom would be better than a studio."

"It's nice," she agreed quietly, staring at beveled tile of the pastel yellow kitchen backsplash and making no move to go see the bedroom. She had the rest of however long she'd be here to see it.

"Alright, so now that you've seen the place, we should probably get to the office so you can be debriefed and get your assignment setup. Our contact from Columbia will be there soon too, and plus, I think I might be illegally parked."

Jane glanced at Pete with tired eyes.

"Can you just give me a few minutes?"

"Uh, sure, I'll be waiting downstairs." He threw her the keys, which she barely caught.

Once he closed the door behind him, Jane let out a long breath. There were so many thoughts dancing around her head, like she'd spoken to anyone who would listen but still felt unheard. It was a loneliness she could feel but not understand. She wondered what sorts of snide comments Loki would have for her now. Likely an endless string of mockery about her pathetic weakness. _One only needs a sane mind. _The sound of him tore at her composure, reminding her of her failures. She leaned back in her chair and rushed through ideas to cover the walls. Loki had no part of this new place, but its great expanses of white were direct proxies of his absence, as though their emptiness mirrored the same within her.

Jane threw her purse and the keys onto the old coffee table languidly. Various objects slid out onto the ring-stained wood: her phone, a pen, an unopened box of cigarettes. Curiously studying the tabletop, she leaned forward and traced her fingertips around each discolored cup ring. The warped marks led her to the spilled items. Reaching across the table, she picked up the cigarettes and walked around the corner to the tiny kitchen.

She stepped on the lever to open the trashcan and chucked the box of cigarettes inside. Jane stared thoughtfully down at the box swallowed into the darkness. A small knowing smile played upon her lips.

Maybe Pete was right.

Maybe it was no different than just being alive.

.


End file.
